Scenes From the Windy City
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: A collection of short stories featuring the crew from Firehouse 51 in their not so ordinary day-to-day lives on and off the job.
1. Chapter 1

Scenes From the Windy City

A/N: This is a series of snippets compiled of ideas I couldn't find room for in any full length Chicago Fire stories I'm currently doing. Hope you enjoy!

The Morning After

Severide unlocked his apartment door and helped Casey walk in. The Truck lieutenant was half leaning on Kelly and just about to fall down laughing. They'd just gotten back from the New Year's Eve party at Molly's bar. Everybody had been there and they'd all had their fair share to drink, but Severide was still sober enough to drive the both of them home. It wasn't so much that Casey was too inebriated, it's just that he hadn't been able to calm down.

"Everybody else will be on the road soon, the streets are going to be hell," Kelly told Casey as he walked him over to the couch. "You stay here tonight and I'll give you a lift back to your place tomorrow."

Casey was at a point he could hardly even make any noise, he was having a hard enough time just breathing, but he nodded in agreement.

"Are you going to be okay?" Kelly asked sarcastically.

Casey pressed a hand against his face and tried to control himself. It took a couple tries but he finally calmed down.

"Yeah," he said with a small snort.

Kelly paused, and said, "Well, this is definitely going to be one New Year's Eve party nobody forgets."

"Especially since the invention of social media," Casey added.

Now Kelly was having trouble to not start laughing all over again as he went to the closet and dug out come bedding for Casey to make up the couch with.

"How much did Capp have to drink tonight?" Casey asked, "Do you know?"

"Either too much, or not enough," Kelly answered as he tossed a flannel blanket and a pillow at Casey, who despite his somewhat tipsy state, had enough coordination to catch them before they hit him in the face.

"I mean I know he's crazy in general, but I think even he's going to regret this one tomorrow," Matt said as he placed the pillow on the armrest and laid down immediately and just draped the blanket, still folded up, over the top half of his body.

"I want to know..." Kelly saw the position Casey was in, and went over to the couch and untied his shoes and pulled them off so his feet didn't sweat all night, and continued his original thought, "I want to know what the hell he was thinking!"

"He's your guy, Severide, you tell me," Casey said, his eyes half closed from exhaustion, but a big knowing smirk still beaming on his face.

The party at Molly's had started off like the ones they'd had every year before. Aside from the crew of Firehouse 51, the bar had been pretty decently packed with non-regular customers. It was definitely unlikely Herrmann would have any gripes about their profit for the night. Everybody was so involved in what they were doing, it didn't dawn on anyone that Capp had gone missing sometime during the night. Closer to midnight his absence became noticeable, and just as everybody was starting to question what happened, the midnight countdown began, and as soon as everybody was hailing in the new year, Capp came charging into the room wearing nothing but a white pair of underwear and a sash haphazardly torn from a bed sheet, with the words 'Baby New Year' messily scrawled on it in magic marker ink. Half of the people in the bar spat out their drinks in shock at the sight that suddenly beheld them, everybody else instantly busted out laughing, except for Otis who had managed to keep a straight face long enough to say, "Now that's one _ugly_ baby!" before he too doubled over laughing his head off.

That had been over an hour ago, and Casey had just finally managed to stop laughing about it. Severide had been so stunned, because as usual, nobody had any idea that Capp had anything planned, at first he had no idea how to react, and after the initial shock wore off he found himself about to hit the floor laughing as well, but he'd managed to pull himself together far quicker than Casey had, or for that matter, most of the people at the bar.

Casey clamped both hands over his mouth as he started to laugh again, just thinking about it. But he composed himself and asked Kelly, "How long do you think he'd been planning that?"

"After all these years I've found out it's best not to think too much about how or why Capp does _anything_ he does," Kelly said in response.

Casey hit his head back against the pillow as a low series of chuckles worked their way loose.

"Casey," Kelly tried to sound serious but he found his own voice breaking as another batch of guffaws threatened to bubble over, "It's not funny," and his voice broke as he started snickering at the memory of that image.

"No, it's _hilarious_ ," Casey replied as his voice climbed several decibels in a series of high pitched laughs.

Kelly watched Casey as he lay flat on his back, his eyes squeezed shut as he spent another minute in a complete fit, then he seemed to regain control of himself.

"Oh well, I suppose it's a good omen if you can start off the new year with a good laugh," Casey's voice cracked at the last word but otherwise he appeared calmed down.

"And thanks to the pictures everybody took, I have a feeling a _lot_ of people are going to be laughing about it for a _long_ time," Kelly responded.


	2. Chapter 2

Lost in Translation

A/N: While readers will possibly see a similarity to this chapter and the beginning of "All the Proof", I would like to go on record stating this idea occurred to me the night before the episode aired. Hope you enjoy!

It had actually started out as a slow shift, until 9:30 A.M. anyway. Then Truck had been called out for a possible gas leak. Seemed routine based on the information given by dispatch. Actually arriving on the scene was another matter altogether. Somehow in the time it took for them to roll up to the apartment complex, a five car pileup had occurred in the middle of the street and only half of the people involved had gotten out of their cars to try and kill one another, so Rescue Squad and Ambo had been called in as well to tend to the others, and both of them arrived shortly after Truck did.

The apparent owner of the building was a middle aged man with a slight build and dark hair, dressed in dirty jeans and an off-white work shirt and stood out in the yard and told Casey, "Some of the tenants have been calling all morning complaining of a weird odor. We'd been having issues with the sewage system and had plumbers out here five times in the last two months to work on it, I figured more of the same."

"Anybody complain of a gas smell?" Casey asked.

"Nobody specified, some of the tenants are ESL speakers so I have no idea if they just didn't say anything or what."

"How many tenants you got?" Casey looked up at the six story building.

"38 occupants in 17 apartments."

"They're still in there?"

"I honestly don't know, some were already coming out when I arrived but nobody knows anything for sure," the owner said. "Some of them are older people, paranoid, they don't answer the door, they don't have phones."

"Boy you got some real winners here by the sounds of it," Herrmann commented as he came up to them.

"Let's sweep the floors and see what we find," Casey told the others.

"On it, Lieutenant," Cruz said.

Casey turned back to the landlord and asked, "You got keys to the apartments?"

"Some of them changed locks and didn't bother telling me until after the fact," he replied simply.

Casey turned to the others and told them, "Alright, anybody doesn't answer, kick the door in."

"Are you serious?"

Casey turned back to the landlord and shot him a death glare. "We're not going to take a chance that somebody already succumbed to the gas and is laying unconscious in their apartment, got it?"

"Alright, fine," he conceded.

Casey hollered over to the paramedics who were getting one of the pileup victims settled on a backboard, "How many more Ambos on the way?"

"Three more en route," Sylvie answered, motioning that it would be enough to accommodate everybody Rescue was pulling out of their cars.

"Tell dispatch to send a couple more, if we find anybody we'll have to get them checked out for gas inhalation."

"On it, Casey!" Brett called back.

"Everybody move in!" Casey told his men as they masked up.

* * *

"Fire department! Gas leak, everybody get out!" Herrmann pounded on one of the doors on the third floor.

There was no response there but across the hall a door opened and a couple teenagers looked out. Christopher hollered over to them, "Anybody in there, get out, there's a gas leak in the building!"

"Are you serious?" the boy asked.

"Hey! Do I look like I'm joking? Get the hell out!"

The two of them tore out of the apartment and rushed down the stairs. Herrmann turned around and kicked the door in and entered. "Fire department! Call out!"

He went from room to room and checked, it looked like whoever lived there was out for the day. He headed back out to the hall and went to the next door.

"Fire department! Gas leak! We're evacuating the building!"

The door opened and a woman ran out with her toddler, the noise had also been enough to get the attention of five tenants across the hall.

"Hey, can anybody tell me if any of these apartments are empty?" Herrmann asked them.

One of the men pointed to the apartment at the end of the hall on the right side. "That's the only other one rented on this floor, I think she's still inside."

"Okay, thanks, everybody get out!" Herrmann told them. He went over to the last door and pounded on it, "Fire department, gas leak!"

The door opened and a short, heavy set, older woman with dark hair wearing a house dress and a scarf over her hair, spoke too fast for Herrmann to understand what she was saying.

"We got a gas leak in the building, you gotta clear out," he told her.

The woman responded and Herrmann still couldn't understand what she was saying, and he realized it wasn't because she was talking too fast, it was because she wasn't speaking English, somehow this didn't deter him from trying again.

"Everybody's evacuating, there's a gas leak, you gotta go outside," he said.

The woman shook her head and seemed to be arguing with Herrmann even though he had absolutely no idea what she could be arguing about. He tried to explain it to her again and even moved to take her by the arm and walk her out, but the woman screamed at him and tried to shut the door on him.

"Hey, lady!" Herrmann forced the door open, "Now's not the time to be playing games, we gotta get out of here."

The woman retreated to her kitchen and Herrmann followed after her, trying to talk some sense into her. He removed his mask and helmet momentarily to try again. Guessing that she hadn't been born here, it occurred to him maybe he looked too much like 'authority' for her comfort.

"Lady, I don't know what you're doing, but you gotta-"

The woman started yelling at Herrmann as she picked up two bunches of celery off the table and used them to hit him on the head and both sides of his face.

"Ow! Lady, stop that, ow! What're you-ow! Will you cut that out? This is seri-ouch!" Herrmann tried to grab the celery away from her but she was too fast, and any further attempts to explain the situation was quickly lost.

"Herrmann!" Cruz stuck his head in the doorway, "What're you doing?"

"Ow!" Herrmann took a step back and turned to Cruz, gesturing to the woman, "This crazy woman won't leave!" He turned back towards her and tried to grab her but she hit him again with both sleeves of celery.

Cruz shook his head, wondering what the hell Herrmann had gotten himself into now, and he went over to assist, and he heard the woman screaming.

"Ow! Cut that out!" Herrmann finally grabbed the celery away from her and told Cruz, "She thinks she's the Swedish Chef or something."

Cruz shook his head, "No, that's not Swedish, it's Russian." He raised a finger to get Herrmann's attention and moved forward. He raised his hands in a non-threatening gesture and said something to the woman that Herrmann had no idea what the hell it was. Herrmann stood back and watched the woman, who seemed to understand what Cruz was saying, and she spoke back to him. Cruz made a few gestures with his hands as he continued to speak slowly and calmly, and Herrmann was in awe. The two of them actually seemed to be holding a conversation with one another. The woman made a couple movements with her hands that Herrmann took as meaning she finally understood what was going on, and she said something in confirmation and moved to grab her purse.

Herrmann stepped over to Cruz and asked in his ear, "What the hell did you just say to her?"

Joe turned to him and admitted, "I have no idea."

Herrmann scoffed and rolled his eyes. Cruz continued, "But after listening to Otis and Baba talk to each other for 6 months, I thought I'd try faking it."

"Well you seem to have faked it very realistically," Herrmann said, "now let's get out of here."


	3. Chapter 3

Strange Bedfellows

Kelly Severide had been watching a Blackhawks game on TV when he suddenly heard a whining surging sound, then suddenly everything went quiet and his apartment was plunged into darkness. It took a second for him to actually realize what had happened. He got up from the couch and made his way over to the window and looked out, and felt his heart drop.

Everything was dark. There were no lights in any of the apartments across the street, the street lamps were out, everything was out, all he could see were the headlights of a few cars driving along in the street. The only way he could see anything was from the moonlight shining on the snow that covered every single thing outside his apartment window. Just _great_. The whole power grid was probably out, and it was 10 below out. _Fabulous_.

His cell phone started ringing, and Kelly wondered who could possibly have that kind of timing, at least it lit up so he could find it. It was Casey calling.

"Let me guess, you too?" he asked.

"What the hell happened?" Casey asked. There was some static over the line.

"Looks like we're in a power outage, is it your block too?" Kelly asked.

"I'm not home," Casey told him.

"Where are you?"

There was some noise in the background, when Casey talked again it sounded like his nerves were about shot.

"I'm about five blocks from your place...everybody's driving like a lunatic, can I stay at your place tonight?"

"What?"

"I have a feeling I won't make it back to my apartment alive tonight if I try making it," Casey's tone told Severide he wasn't joking.

Kelly just could imagine all the drivers on the road freaking out when all the lights along the streets went out, and he agreed that was the last place Casey needed to be right now.

"Can you get here okay?"

"I'll be there in a couple minutes."

"Okay, I'll let you in," Kelly told him.

There was a pause, then Matt responded, "Thanks, Kelly."

Kelly hung up and tried to remember where he left his flashlight. He used the illumination from his phone to make his way over to the kitchen and opened the junk drawer at the end of the counter, there was an assortment of old screwdrivers and hammers and an ice pick, but no flashlight. It had been a long time since he'd actually needed it. He opened the cupboards over the sink, and working with what little light he had, didn't see a flashlight, but did see a box of votive candles. He also found a box of matches in the cupboard, perfect since that was the only way he'd be getting the stove lit until the power came back on. Thank God that wasn't electric too. He took the candles down, fished a plate out of the dish rack, poured a few candles onto it and lit them to get some light on the subject so he could better look around the apartment.

Somebody was knocking on the door.

Kelly carried the plate in one hand as he went over to the front door and asked, making sure it wasn't one of the city's numerous crazies taking advantage of the blackout to go looting, "Casey?"

"Let me in," he heard Matt's voice from the other side of the door.

Kelly undid the locks and let Casey in.

"What happened?"

"It's freezing out there!" Casey announced as he walked in, hugging his coat tight against his body.

"Ain't gonna be much better in here," Kelly said as he pushed the door shut with his hip and relocked it. "You okay?"

"I was on the road when the power went out," Casey said, clearly shaken up but trying to hide it, "everybody panicked, a couple cars flipped over, another went into a ditch, you could _see_ flashing lights on the way, but I knew if I stuck around I'd be there all night..." he shivered as he finally took his coat off and said, "all I wanted to do was get home, but I don't want to risk running into 50 more nuts like that on the road."

"I'm glad you came here," Kelly told him.

Casey noted the candles on the plate. Severide set it down and explained, "I'm trying to find a flashlight."

"Interesting," Casey noted. "Where'd you last see it?"

Kelly did a double take. "Smartass."

"Uh...is it alright if..." Casey motioned towards the couch.

"Oh, yeah, hang on," Kelly went over to the closet and opened the door, he grabbed a flannel blanket with one hand and tried to pull it down from the top shelf, but it wouldn't budge, then it gave way and unraveled as it fell on him, and he heard a familiar metal clink in the process. He knelt down and found the flashlight and turned it on.

"Well things are starting to look up," he commented as he picked up the blanket and handed it to Casey.

"Thanks...I really appreciate this, Kelly," Matt told him.

"No problem. I just hope they can get the power back on before too long, or this city's gonna riot."

* * *

Since there wasn't much to do with no power, Casey got settled on the couch and Kelly decided to call it an early night around 11:30. He changed into his warmest pajamas and crawled into bed and shortly after fell asleep.

By 12:05, Casey quietly crept into Severide's bedroom, wrapped in the flannel blanket like a mummy, and he softly padded over to the bed, where Kelly was obliviously asleep. Matt leaned down and whispered into his ear, "Kelly..." no response, he tried again, "Kelly..." Again, nothing, Casey pulled back, and asked again, much louder this time, "KELLY!"

"AHHH!" Severide shot up in his bed.

"Oh good, you're awake," Casey sarcastically replied.

"What is it? What happened?" Kelly asked as he tried to figure out where he was and what was going on since it was still too dark to see anything. Then he realized who was talking to him, hit his head back against the pillows and asked, "What do you want, Casey?"

Matt sighed as he explained, "There's a draft in the living room...can I stay in here with you?"

It was obvious from his tone that he was miserable, and any arguments Severide might've had about letting Casey in his bed suddenly died on his lips.

"...Sure," he said as he reached over and pulled the covers down.

Casey went towards the door and shut it to keep the cold air out, then went over to the bed and burrowed under the covers.

"Goodnight, Casey."

"Goodnight."

* * *

12:25-

Kelly coughed and it caught in his throat, he was choking, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe, even through his nose he couldn't breathe. He opened his eyes and saw very little from the light coming in the window reflecting off the snow. He could make out somebody hovering over him and realized his nose had been pinched shut. He struggled with the other person and finally broke loose from their grip on his nose.

"Casey, what the hell are you doing?"

"You're snoring loud enough to wake the dead!" Casey complained.

"So you're trying to _kill_ me?" Kelly asked.

"I can't sleep, you make more noise than a garbage disposal!" Casey told him.

"Oh for crying out loud," Kelly said as he turned to face away from him.

* * *

12:43-

Kelly felt his eyes bulge, and turned over and jabbed Casey in what he guessed to be his shoulder, to wake him up.

"Ah! What is it?" Casey asked.

"Keep your feet on your side of the bed and stop pressing them against my ass," Kelly told him. "They're freezing!"

"I know that, I was trying to warm them up," Casey replied.

"You are sick, you know that?"

"I'm _cold_!"

Severide sighed as he threw back the covers and got out of bed. Casey couldn't see what he was doing but it sounded like he went over to the closet and was rifling through it. Then everything was quiet. He heard the floorboards creak as Severide came back over, and felt a sudden breeze that chilled him just before he felt something heavy hit him, he felt it and realized it was another blanket.

"There, problem solved. Now go back to sleep," Kelly told him.

"I'm trying to go to sleep."

"Don't try, _do_ it," Kelly said.

* * *

1:38-

"OUCH!"

Kelly shot up in bed as he simultaneously heard Casey scream, and felt the whole bed shake.

"What happened?"

Casey leaned against the side of the bed and groaned, "I kicked the bedstead."

"What're you doing up?" Kelly asked.

"I went to the bathroom," Casey answered defensively as he climbed back into bed and pulled the covers up, "I was trying to make my way back in the dark."

"Why didn't you just turn on a flashlight?" Severide snidely asked as if it was the most basic concept in the world.

"Because I didn't want to wake you up!" Casey replied in an aggravated hiss of a whisper.

"Well you suck at that," Kelly told him.

In the dark Severide heard Casey moan, and would almost swear he even heard a couple small whimpers, but they quickly subsided as he heard Casey moving around and the blankets and quilts rustling with his movements.

* * *

2:09-

Casey felt his legs knocking together, he could feel gooseflesh under his sweatshirt. It finally dawned on him the reason he was so unbearably cold was he wasn't covered up. He was curled on a ball on his side of the bed and all the covers were gone. He turned over and realized they were all bunched up over Severide, who as far as Casey could tell was in a dead sleep. Casey resentfully shoved Kelly towards the edge of the bed and heard him yelp, then a crash, and a pained groan.

"What now?" Kelly demanded to know as he got back on the bed and brought the covers back with him.

"That's for stealing my blanket," Casey told him.

"What?"

"I'm freezing to death over here!"

"Why didn't you just say so?" Kelly asked as he felt along the blankets, found one that wasn't tucked in at the foot of the bed and tossed it over to Casey's side.

"I need to sleep," Casey whined exhaustively.

"Then _go_ to sleep," Kelly told him.

* * *

2:45-

Kelly woke up because he felt something touching his neck, freakishly coinciding with the nightmare he'd just been having about a vampire trying to bite him. He laid perfectly still and tried to figure out what was going on, and it occurred to him he was feeling somebody's breath against his neck, the breath was cold. Then he also realized that somebody had their arm draped over his waist, and he could feel somebody's weight pressing against his ribs. And finally he realized it was Casey, who had curled up against him in his sleep, and was currently dead to the world.

Several different ideas were running through Severide's head all at the same time, half of them different ways to get Casey off of him. He knew that Casey couldn't help it because he was asleep and didn't know what he was doing, but...he realized he couldn't do it. They'd both been trying to sleep all night, so far with very little success...no, he could deal with it for one night, maybe now they could _both_ get some sleep. Kelly stretched his hand out to figure out where the covers were and drew them up on both of them, since he couldn't see what he was doing, he thought he pulled the blankets halfway up Casey's face, but as long as he wasn't complaining, Kelly was going to leave it alone. He had to admit it was warmer this way, not entirely unpleasant. He got his weight slightly adjusted so Casey wasn't pressing on his ribs as much, and finally, almost absently, wrapped an arm around Casey's shoulders, and listened to the quiet, even breaths of the man next to him, and slowly fell back asleep.

* * *

7:25-

Kelly opened his eyes and noticed the snow outside looked lighter and realized it was morning, and hopefully that meant the sun would actually come out later. He tried to move but he was tangled in all the covers, he turned his head and saw Casey hadn't moved and was still on his side, with one of the flannel blankets covering his nose. Severide looked around the apartment and realized the power was still out, he was _not_ looking forward to getting out of bed. They didn't have to be at work until tomorrow, so there wasn't anything really pressing, especially with the whole block still in a blackout, but he decided they might as well face the day and get it over with. He nudged the Truck lieutenant with his shoulder.

"Hey, Casey, wake up, it's morning."

Matt took in a deeper breath than before and slowly opened his eyes, he pulled the blanket down and sat up.

"What time is it?"

Kelly reached over and grabbed his phone.

"Almost 7:30."

Casey reluctantly got out of bed, "I should be able to get back to my apartment now."

"You want to stick around for a few minutes, I'll make us some coffee," Kelly told him.

Casey turned back to him. "How? I happen to know all you have is the electric coffee maker in the kitchen."

* * *

The whole apartment was freezing cold by this time. Kelly filled a saucepan with water, put it on the stove, turned the knob to 'light' and when it clicked, he struck a match and held it towards the gas and a blue flame sparked to life under the burner. He turned back towards Casey, who was still wrapped up in a flannel blanket practically up to his eyeballs.

"It'll be a few minutes."

"Since when do you drink instant?" Casey asked.

Kelly reached up and opened the cupboard door and pulled out a jar. "Since this isn't the first power outage I've been in, and that's not enough of an excuse to go without coffee," he explained.

"Hey, uh...thanks for letting me stay here last night," Casey told him. "I really appreciate it, and I know it wasn't easy."

Kelly tried to shrug it off but a small laugh worked its way loose as he replied, "Actually it wasn't one of the more livelier nights I ever had."

They both had a laugh at that.

After a few minutes the water started to boil, Kelly poured it into two mugs and they were both taking a sip of the first hot beverage either of them had had in almost 24 hours, when suddenly the room got bright, and through the wall to the living room they could hear the TV blaring away.

"Hey the power's back on!" Casey realized.

"Thank God," Kelly said.

"I don't know, I think I'd rather be in a blackout in winter than the dead of summer," Casey replied as he unraveled the blanket and folded it over a chair.

"And you call yourself a fireman, we're supposed to thrive in a dead heat."

"In a fire, sure, you want to sit around 51 with 30 sweaty guys and no air conditioning for 24 hours?"

"Eeeh, good point," Kelly nodded.

Casey finished his coffee, and told Severide, "I'm gonna get going. Thanks again."

"No problem," Kelly said as Casey put on his coat and was out the door.

Despite the noise of the electronics suddenly coming back to life, the apartment was silent after that. Kelly stood there for a minute, thinking to himself, if he was completely honest with himself, it hadn't been that bad of a time last night. He actually found himself almost wishing they'd have another power outage...in May.


	4. Chapter 4

Hit and Run

A/N: Going with something a little more serious this time, hope you enjoy!

A call had come in for Truck, Squad and Ambo to respond to a multiple vehicle accident, other than that and the address, nothing was known about what they were going to be stepping into. Everybody suited up and drove out of 51, everybody mentally going over what they could most likely expect just based on the sheer number of pileups they'd responded to over the years. There was no way to ever anticipate what they would find, but there were some things more commonly found in car accidents than others.

"What do you think, drunk driver or some goober on his phone?" Capp asked as they got ready. As many tragedies as they saw on a regular basis, a sense of humor was mandatory if you were going to survive the job, that was strictly for _after_ the call though, _on_ the call they compensated by taking bets on what the likely cause of the call was.

"Too early for _most_ drunk drivers," Severide responded, not that he thought that actually mattered, still he responded, "My money's on somebody not paying attention." That's the way most of them were, it wasn't even just the criminal disregard for human life, most accidents were simply somebody looking away at the wrong moment, and then...

"What the-"

That was all that was heard from Tony before the sound of the brakes drowned out everything else, and what happened happened so fast and so suddenly that the others were thrown completely forward and then about fell flat on their backs as the engine roared to a sudden stop.

"Tony, what the hell happened?" Severide asked as he regained his balance.

In the driver's seat, Tony just stared straight ahead, both hands in a white knuckled grip on the wheel, he didn't even move.

"Oh my God," he said distantly. "Oh my God..."

"What is it?" Capp asked. They looked out the windshield but they couldn't see anything.

"I didn't see her," Tony said, still staring straight ahead at the road. "I didn't see her."

Severide and Capp looked at each other and exchanged a mutual look of horror.

They all jumped out of the truck, Severide radioed dispatch to send an additional ambo their way and informed them they had a possible hit and run victim and mentioned another Rescue Squad would have to be called in to the pileup. Everybody looked around but they didn't see a woman anywhere. It was a pretty empty intersection, a few parked cars up and down the street but no traffic and no people.

"Where was she?" Kelly asked.

"She just..." Tony was white as a sheet as he tried to form the words to explain, "she just ran out in front of the rig, I couldn't...I couldn't stop in time..."

A sudden realization washed over all of them as they turned back towards the truck that had reached a dead stop in the middle of the road. Severide crouched down and felt his stomach drop as he saw a white sneaker. He ran around to the back of the truck and crouched under it and saw an outstretched hand with manicured nails. The hand was attached to a very thin wrist, and he was able to make out a sleeve just above the elbow. All of the firefighters felt their breath leave them as they heard a low hissing sound under the truck and realized it was the woman breathing.

"Ma'am, can you hear me?" Kelly asked as he proceeded to slide under the truck.

"...Yes..." a voice rang back towards him uncertainly. He couldn't see her face, he couldn't tell how old she was. He pressed his head against the asphalt for a better look, he could make out a cheap chain bracelet on the wrist and the shirt she wore was green and gold striped.

"Ma'am, we're gonna get you out of here, we've got an ambulance on the way, can you tell me your name?"

The hand moved, and he could see her face now. She was just a kid. She didn't look older than 17. Her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail and there were streaks of dirt covering her face from where she'd thrown herself on the pavement to avoid being hit by the truck.

Kelly heard a vehicle pulling up and crawled back out, expecting to see the ambulance, instead he saw Casey hopping out of Truck.

"What happened?" he asked as they came up on the scene, "Is everybody okay?"

Severide wasn't even sure how to explain what had happened. The sound of a pained sigh drew his attention back to the girl, who was pulling herself along on her hands and stomach.

"Whoa, don't move!" Kelly told her.

"Severide, what happened?" Casey asked as he crouched down beside the Squad lieutenant for a better look. "Oh my God."

"What is it, lieutenant?" Herrmann shouted from where he and the others stood as they piled out of the truck.

"Stay there!" Casey ordered his men. The girl seemed willing to come out of her own volition, and not having any idea what was going on, he didn't want to risk too many people making her cagey until he could better assess the situation.

"I'm...fine..." the girl shakily answered as she slowly crawled out from under the truck.

Despite Severide's protests she needed to stay where she was until EMS could check her over for any spinal injuries, the girl pulled herself up to her full height, and then the answer was obvious why and how she'd thrown herself under the Squad truck with no injuries. She was tall and barely looked 90 pounds, anything on the underside of the truck that could've hit her missed her completely.

The knees and thighs on her blue jeans were torn open from the pavement, she had a few scrapes and cuts but otherwise didn't appear to be harmed. Her whole body wavered, and she fell down, both lieutenants just caught her at the last second before she hit the ground.

"I told you not to move," Kelly told her as he could hear the ambo's sirens in the distance, "in a minute we'll get a C-collar on you and on a backboard and-"

As Severide talked, Tony and Capp made their way over to them as Tony tried to figure out what the hell he was going to say, when suddenly the girl looked towards him and let out a loud and sudden scream, one that didn't seem to fit her voice whatsoever but would've been more suiting for a 40 year old smoker, and despite the two lieutenants trying to restrain her, tried to jump to her feet and get away. 90 pounds soaking wet or not, she was almost strong enough to break loose from both their grips, and both firefighters had to fight like hell to restrain her as she continued to scream, and it took a minute for them to realize she wasn't just yelling in terror, she was _saying_ something. Over her screams, all of them were able to make out her repeating over and over in a brash but hysterical voice, "He'll kill me! He'll kill me! He'll kill me! He'll kill me! He'll kill me!"

The expression on Tony's face looked like somebody just kicked him in the stomach.

The ambulance pulled up and two paramedics got out, and one of them was-

"Chout, for once I'm glad to see you," Casey said as he and Severide wrangled the girl, "give us a hand over here, will you?"

"Sure thing, Casey, what happened?"

"We're not exactly sure, we need to get her loaded up and to Med so the doctors can see what's wrong with her."

"Did she get hit by a car?" Chout asked.

"Not exactly," Severide said. The girl was still screaming, and kept trying to break loose, Severide added to the paramedic, "Do you have something in there to calm her down?"

"If she's in shock I wouldn't recommend it."

"That seems to be the word," Casey said as between the three of them they eased her on a backboard then on a gurney where she had to be strapped down to stop fighting them. As the paramedics took her away and the rest of the crew from 81 came over, Casey turned to Kelly and asked, "What happened?"

"She ran in front of the truck, Tony couldn't stop," Kelly answered.

"He _hit_ her?" Herrmann asked.

"I don't think so...she...it looks like she dove under the truck and just missed getting hit," Kelly explained.

Casey looked around and asked, "Where'd she come from?"

"I don't know," Tony told him. "She just ran out in the middle of the intersection...we had our sirens on, she _had_ to know we were coming."

Casey looked at him. "You think she was trying to kill herself?"

"She wouldn't have ducked if she was," Kelly said.

"I swear to God, I didn't see her, I didn't mean for this to happen."

"It's alright, Tony, nobody's blaming you," Kelly told him.

They heard other approaching sirens and saw a couple police cars heading their way.

"Yeah? We'll see about that," Tony said as he absentmindedly wrung his hands.

"HEY!" Capp called over to them from the intersecting street, "Over here!"

"What is it?" Severide asked as they headed over to see what he'd found.

"What the hell?" Otis asked.

"Oh man!" Cruz exclaimed.

Sprawled over a storm drain by the curb was the body of a middle aged man who looked like he'd been hit by a car.

" _Him_ I never saw," Tony told the others, "just the girl."

"And he's too far back for the truck to have hit him," Kelly observed.

"But maybe that's what she meant when she said 'he'll kill me'," Casey said with a shake of his head, "Not Tony."

The patrolmen got out of their cars and started questioning the firefighters about what had happened. Even though everyone knew that Tony wasn't at fault for what had happened, everybody knew better than to just assume the police would draw the same logical conclusion. While he spoke with one of the cops and explained from his side of it what had taken place, Kelly and Casey huddled together to talk amongst themselves.

"What do you think?" Casey asked.

Kelly shrugged. "If we could get to Med and talk to her we'd probably know what happened."

"She's in shock, she's in _no_ condition to tell anybody anything," Casey reminded him.

Kelly looked up the street and thought of something, and merely responded, "Picture's worth a thousand words, video's got to be worth more."

"Huh?"

Severide pointed to the houses on both sides of the street and said, "I'll just bet you somebody there's got a security camera running, and if they do..."

Casey looked at him and nodded and said, "Let's go mention it to the patrolmen."

* * *

While the police investigated the accident, they'd let Tony return with the others to the firehouse, though after what had happened he was clearly in no shape to drive. During the ride back he didn't say a word to anyone, didn't make eye contact with anyone, and clenched his hands together until they were both turning blue, his face had turned from white to gray and he looked like death warmed over.

When they finally returned to 51 and got out of the trucks, he turned to Severide and told him, "20 years I've been on this job, never had _anything_ like this happen... _never_...don't make any sense."

"They'll get it figured out, Tony, don't worry about it."

"Yeah, easy for you to say, you weren't the one driving." With that, he turned and stalked off to explain the situation to Boden, and everybody took the hint to stay out of his way and not initiate contact.

"The cops don't _really_ think Tony's responsible, do they?" Otis asked.

"Anybody with a brain would know this is an accident, something that couldn't be avoided," Herrmann said.

Casey leaned over to Severide and murmured, "I'm gonna call Med and see what they know."

"Okay, thanks."

"So what do we do now?" Mouch asked.

"I don't know..." Severide shook his head. Then something came to him. "But I'm going to make sure they don't try pinning this on Tony."

"How?" Cruz asked.

"I'm going to reach out to Antonio and see what he can find out," Severide said.

* * *

It was nearing the end of shift and had been a tense night for everybody, nobody had gotten much sleep, when Severide came out of his quarters and asked Capp, he said that he never saw Tony in the bunk room. Just as everybody was getting ready for shift change, a familiar face appeared on the apparatus floor.

"Antonio, you find something?" Kelly asked.

"Yeah, yeah we found something alright," Antonio looked over at Tony, "Anthony Ferraris-"

"Don't tell me, I'm under arrest," Tony didn't sound too surprised, almost as if he'd been expecting it.

"No, in fact I've got something I think you'll want to see," Antonio responded as he took a tablet out of his jacket. To Severide he said,"We checked that street, we found a surveillance camera half a block up from the intersection, and working backwards from the footage we found, what we got was one very long and tiring jigsaw puzzle. Every time we found somebody with a camera, we got footage from a different angle, were able to trace it back to another camera up another block, up on another street, and put it all together."

"So what the hell happened?" Herrmann asked.

"The John Doe _was_ chasing the girl, clear up to the intersection where the Squad truck almost hit her...we lifted his prints and ran them through CODIS, we got one hell of a hit."

"Who is he?" Tony asked.

"His name was John Boles, but we found two dozen aliases listed for him. This guy has done time in prisons all over this country over the last 30 years."

"For what?" Severide asked.

"You name it: drugs, robbery, assault, blackmail, stalking, criminal threats, felon in possession of a firearm, choking, strangling, you name it, this guy did it, and got a slap on the wrist almost every single time, and was able to move on to a new city, new state, and start again."

"He have any warrants out on him?" Casey asked.

"No warrants but a dozen restraining orders from different women in five states...including Tanya Rutger."

"Who's that?"

"His wife...or I should say in the process of being his ex-wife...they've been married for two years, and she walked out three months ago, and then she started reporting to police that he was threatening her, harassing her, calling her 300 times a day, kicked in her door, chucked a Molotov cocktail through her window."

"And the cops _still_ didn't do anything?" Severide asked in disbelief.

"Wasn't our district, that's all I can say, or we would've been on this guy's ass and buried him" Antonio told them.

"So what's the connection between all that, and the girl he was chasing?" Mouch wanted to know.

"We contacted Chicago Med, they had her listed as Barbara Rutger, Tanya's daughter, 19 years old. We went to Med to question her...she'd disappeared when nobody was looking."

"What?" Casey asked.

"Patrol spotted her and picked her up two blocks from her home and brought her to 21 so we could question her," Antonio explained. "Boles had made threats against her mother, her, and her sister for months, but as much as the cops didn't take the threats against the wife seriously, they especially didn't think he'd actually target her kids. She was walking home, half a mile from the intersection, when he pulled up, got out of the car, grabbed her, and tried to throw her in the trunk of his car. We had her describe the car, we found it, still parked where he left it, the trunk unlocked, and inside the trunk we found three cleavers, one machete and a dozen various knives...this guy was actually going to take her out and dismember her."

"Oh God," Tony exhaled.

"From what she told us she managed to kick him and get loose, and that's when he started chasing after her."

"But what happened to _him_?" Kelly asked.

"Working our way back, we put all the footage from all the surveillance cameras together, and this was the end result," Antonio said as he started the video and held it up for everyone to see.

The less than crystal clear footage showed the man they'd found on the storm drain, chasing the girl up one street, she ran across the sidewalk, then ran out in the middle of the street as he was gaining on her, she turned at a corner, he followed, she turned at another corner, he was right behind her, she ran up to the intersection in question, concealed from the street by a row of parked cars, she ran right out in front of the Squad truck, and after a second's freeze, threw herself flat on the ground just before it hit her. At the same time, almost too far back from the camera to be seen, the man was struck by a speeding car that came out of nowhere from across the intersection and swerved around the truck that suddenly stopped in the middle of the street. It was a flashy silver sports car built low to the ground, that passed by in such a blur, nobody watching the footage was surprised that Tony hadn't seen it when he stopped the truck, especially given the state of shock he'd been in. The man rolled off the hood of the car as it drove down the street, and his body rolled onto the storm drain.

"Wow..." was the only thing Otis could say at first, then he added, "who'd ever think a hit and run could be a _good_ thing?"

"As a cop I'm not supposed to have this opinion, but there are some people in this world who just need to be killed, and John Boles was definitely one of them. Guy had balls enough to take out hits on two of the officers who arrested him at two different times in two separate states, luckily a jailhouse informant picked up on them both times so they were averted, the bottom line is he feared no one and nothing, and if that car hadn't mowed him down, he would've killed Barbara Rutger, and probably would've killed her sister, and her mother, and slipped out of Chicago undetected, and gone on to do it again to God knows how many unsuspecting victims."

"So...because Tony stopped the rig when he did..." Kelly started to put the pieces together.

"Sure seems to have inadvertently put everything into motion," Antonio answered. "Off the record, I hope we never find out who was driving that sports car, they did the world a favor." He extended his hand to Tony and added, "For your own part, I personally want to thank you."

It was all more than Tony could take in at that time, all he could think to say was, "Huh?"

"And...there's someone else," Antonio said.

Everybody heard the sound of somebody walking up the apparatus floor and turned and saw the girl, her torn clothes from yesterday replaced with a lighter pair of blue jeans and a black sweater, and she seemed to have more nervous energy in her body than she knew what to do with, she hugged her arms around herself and her knees knocked together like she was freezing, today more than yesterday right after the accident she had a borderline panicked doe-in-headlights look in her eyes. Nobody knew what to say.

Finally, she moved, and in a couple quick steps she crossed the floor over to Tony, put her arms around him and got out a shaky, "Thank you." Her voice broke and sobbing hysterically she told him, "Thank you for saving my life, he was gonna kill me!"

Tony didn't have any idea what to say in response to that. _Nobody_ did. Tony absently raised his arms and hugged the girl in return and, struggling to coherently form any words, just responded, "D-don't mention it."


	5. Chapter 5

A Ton of Fun

"Hey Otis, I thought you weren't working here tonight," Casey said as he approached the firefighter behind the bar at Molly's. It wasn't the slowest night the bar had ever seen but it was pretty uneventful at the moment.

"I'm just helping out until my date gets here, and then I'll be out of here," Brian told the lieutenant as he wiped off the counter.

"Oh? Anyone we know?"

"I don't think so," he shook his head.

"You don't _think_ so?"

"It's a blind date," Otis admitted.

"Oh," Casey said.

"Cruz set it up."

"Cruz? _Why_?" Casey felt a need to ask. That definitely earned him a scowl from Brian.

"It's one of the women from the Zumba classes he teaches," Brian explained.

"Oh!" Casey's tone became notably more interested.

"He said her name's Alayna, apparently she's his prize student, whatever that means."

Casey hawed under his breath and commented, "Sounds promising. So what exactly do you have in mind?"

"Well obviously not just sitting around here all night," Brian answered, "I have a few general go-tos for a night out but I can better assess the situation once I've seen her and we've had a chance to get acquainted."

Casey nodded, "So, you don't have _any_ idea what she looks like?"

"Cruz said that she'd be wearing a red blouse...there've already been a few of those in here tonight but none of them are her," Otis gestured to some of the customers around the bar.

"You don't suppose this is just another one of his jokes, do you?" Casey asked, "Like the whole NASA thing?"

"Don't think I didn't wonder that," Otis told the lieutenant, "he gave me his word that she will be here before 9 o' clock, and he knows better than to lie to me...I know where he lives."

"True," Casey said.

Casey turned and took in a general view of the crowd that night, then his eyes widened and small sound caught in his throat. He turned back to Brian and said as he reached for his wallet, "You know what, Otis, I think I'm gonna cut out and call it a night..." he put a couple bills on the counter and told him, "And good luck on your date." With that, he turned to leave, struggling to keep a straight face.

Otis opened the register and put in Casey's money, when he heard a voice behind him.

"Excuse me, are you Brian Zvonocek?"

Growing up in Chicago, it was hard not to respond with a cautious 'that depends who's asking', but Brian knew that was a bad way to get business. He merely answered, "Why yes I am." He turned to the bar and saw a heavyset woman with lightly tanned skin, short wavy hair, dressed in a red T-shirt, blue stretch jeans, and she was standing far enough back from the bar he could also see white sneakers. "How can I help you?"

The woman smiled at him and answered, "I'm Alayna, your date tonight."

"Oh," Otis slowly did a double take as he realized what she was saying, and the surprise was evident on his face, "Oh! I thought...uh...Joe said you'd be wearing a red blouse."

"Eh, a miscommunication," she said as she extended a hand out to him, "I don't go too formal on first dates."

"I see, uh..." slowly shaking off his shock, Otis took her hand and shook it, "Nice to...meet you."

"Am I too early?" she asked.

"Oh, no, I'm just wrapping things up here...give me a minute and I'll be ready to go."

"Okay," she smiled at him.

Brian turned around and stormed over to Christopher and asked him in a firm whisper, "Herrmann, has Cruz been in tonight?"

"Uh, no," Herrmann turned towards him, "Why?"

Otis gestured over his shoulder and asked, "See that woman over there?"

Herrmann craned his neck to see.

"No, don't look!"

Herrmann scowled at him, "Then how am I supposed to see her?" He got on his toes for a better look and made a face, "Ooh...she's a big one, isn't she?"

"That's the woman Cruz set me up on a blind date with."

"What did you do to Cruz?" Herrmann asked.

"I am gonna kill him when I see him," Brian told Herrmann, "He said he was setting me up with one of his Zumba students."

"Huh...must be a beginner," Christopher suggested. "So what're you gonna do?"

"I don't have any choice, I gotta go out with her," Brian said.

"Okay...just a tip, _don't_ mention salad bars," Herrmann commented.

Brian made a garbled disgruntled sound in his throat as he turned around and put on the best face he could force, and asked Alayna, who had perched herself on a bar stool, "You ready?"

She smiled at him and asked, "What do you have in mind?"

"Oh...well..." he smiled and replied, "you lead."

"If you insist," she stood up. As they headed out, she put her hand on the door and mentioned to Brian, "I hope you can keep up."

He raised his eyebrows questioningly at her comment.

* * *

Brian's head was just about to explode from the echoes of the pins being knocked down all around him at the bowling alley. After he and his date left Molly's, first they'd gone to a burger joint for dinner, which hadn't surprised him, and they'd struck up a nice conversation over a couple of burgers and sodas. After that they'd gone to the batting cages, which did surprise him, he'd gone first and managed to hit about half of the balls fired at him, a couple came close to hitting him in the face, then it was her turn. As far as he could tell, Alayna was right handed, but when she put on the helmet and stepped up to bat, she'd done it left handed, and hit a couple of balls so hard he thought for sure there was going to be a hole in the chain-link.

"Did I mention I used to date one of the Chicago Cubs?" she asked nonchalantly when they ran out of quarters and got ready to leave.

Any preconceived notions Brian might've had about how their date was going to go flew out the window at that moment.

After that, they'd walked a mile over to a bowling alley. They'd bowled three games, and that was where they were at now. Brian looked up and saw Alayna coming back from the snack bar with two drinks and a sympathetic look on her face.

"Any luck yet?" she asked.

"Still stuck," Brian held up his hand that had a bowling ball impaled on three of his fingers.

Alayna set their drinks down and said, "I'll try again."

"You know," Brian braced himself in his seat, "this is actually not _the_ most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me in a bowling alley."

"Oh yeah?" she asked as she wrapped her arm around the ball and got ready to yank.

"Yeah, OW!" Brian felt like she was trying to take his whole hand off, but to his immense relief, the suction around his fingers finally released and Alayna just about fell back with the ball in hand.

"Well that was fun," she commented with a heaving breath as she sat down beside him and put the bowling ball on the chair next to her.

"Anyway, a couple years back, we respond to this call, guy got his hand caught in the pinsetter."

" _How_?" she asked.

"I don't know," he replied, "anyway, we get him out, we're making our way back up the lane...and I slip and fall flat on my ass...and I'm trying to get up, and I just fall again, and if that weren't bad enough, we have an interim chief filling in for our chief who's laughing at me, calling me Gutterball...next thing I know everybody at 51 is calling me Gutterball, _off_ shift, _at the bar_."

"What's an interim chief?" Alayna asked.

"Substitute until a full time chief can take over," Otis told her.

"Huh," she hawed under her breath, and started to laugh as she said, "The name kind of implies he's got some shortcomings to overcompensate for."

"Huh?" Otis turned to her, and then her words hit him and he started laughing, "That's good, I never thought of that."

"So I guess there's no point in asking..." she nodded towards the ball.

"You've already beaten me two times, and especially in light of what just happened, I'd like to preserve a little dignity," Otis told her.

Alayna craned her neck around to look behind them and asked, "How about shooting some pool?"

Brian glanced towards the tables, "Well I don't guess I could get stuck on one of them...okay, let's try. Incidentally, do you play pool as well as you bowl?"

"You'll just have to find out," she said coyly as she took the ball over to the shelf and put it back.

* * *

"So can I ask you something?" Brian asked as they walked out of the bowling alley.

Their pool game had lasted 15 minutes, until they were down to the last two balls, then it took another 20 for either of them to sink theirs, Brian got the lucky shot that sank his striped. After that they'd gone over to the foosball table, despite the firehouse's own infamous 'Fiasco' with one several years ago, it had been a good game, until someone, he still wasn't sure which one of them did it, they were both one point away from winning and trying with all their might to get the last shot in, swung their men too hard and kicked the ball clear off the table and halfway across the bowling alley. After that they decided to call it good and walk out before anything escalated any further and they got thrown out. The night was chilly and the air was crisp, there wasn't as much traffic now as there was when they first arrived.

"Shoot," Alayna said as she steadily trudged along in the cold night air.

"Joe said that you're in his Zumba class."

"Oh yeah," she said with a small laugh, "the fat woman who can't keep time with the rest of the class."

Brian raised a hand as he tried to explain, "I didn't mean anything by..."

"No, it's fine, it's the truth," she told him, as nonchalantly as if she was giving him directions, "it's a two edged sword, you got a weight problem, you gotta be willing to put yourself out there to ridicule and public humiliation, in order to change anything. It's a bitch, but it doesn't have to stay that way."

"Joe said you're his prize student," Brian told her.

She laughed again, "Yeah, I've been going for 3 months, and I ain't quit yet...not much better than the first day when I collapsed in the middle of the class, but it's worth it."

"I guess so, you seem to be doing alright," Brian said, mentally calculating how far they'd walked all over the city that night so far, and even with the low temperature she wasn't winded yet.

As if she could read his mind, Alayna told him, "Walking doesn't bother me, never did...running, jumping...that's a different story." She patted her denim clad thigh and told him, "Short hamstrings, family trait, even when I was a 40 pound kid and we played tag, I could never run fast enough to catch anybody, and it wasn't 5 minutes until I was on the ground puffing and wheezing."

"You don't say," Brian looked at her.

Alayna pointed to a bench and they sat down, and she told him, "At the time I just thought it was because I was the smallest kid on the block. I didn't know at the time, nobody told me that because I was a preemie, my lungs never fully developed, which subjected me to every single respiratory infection that ever passed through our neighborhood. So I was sick a lot as a kid."

"Sorry to hear that."

"You do _not_ want to hear me cough," Alayna told him, "even when I'm not sick it sounds like I'm trying to hack up a lung. Nobody else in my family has that problem, anybody else coughs, they just cough, real simple and quiet, me, it sounds like a fog horn going off." She looked at him and said, "Understand, I'm not saying that's how I got fat...I couldn't run as a kid but I was very active, I rode three bikes until complete ruin, I ground the wheels on my roller skates down to nubs, I could do more pull-ups on the monkey bars at school than any other kid."

"Impressive," Brian responded genuinely.

"Yeah, but for some reason, I was still heavier than all the other kids my age, and it got worse after puberty, but that didn't stop me, I was still on the go all day every day...if you saw me, you wouldn't have known I weighed what I did...between 5th grade and when I finished college I put on 100 pounds, some of it was just growing up, some of it was I'd also done weight training for years so I had more muscle than my friends did, and the other part of it was I liked to eat and moderation wasn't a word in my vocabulary," Alayna told him. She shrugged and said, "Everybody loves to act like they know your whole life story just by looking at you...yeah it's true, you don't get this big overnight...but it's a lot easier to not realize how bad things are getting than people like to think."

Brian decided it was a good time to keep his mouth shut and see what happened next. He'd never had a date willing to reveal so much about themselves on the first date, least of all so much that wasn't pleasant to relive.

"First couple years out of college I was free and could pretty much do as I pleased...year after that, my aunt was diagnosed with cancer...my mom and I had to drop everything to take care of her full time...they were never close, but family's family, right? So we take it one day at a time and just hope for the best and help her out any way we can. And for the next three years, every day without fail, snow or shine, sickness or health, we clean her house, do her disgusting laundry, clean up after all her accidents that were side effects to the chemo and radiation...cooked her meals, did everything she asked because the doctors said if she moved around too much she'd bleed out...cleaning the bathroom was one of the worst, for a while...then they gave her two nephrostomy bags, then a colostomy bag, who do you think had to empty those, clean them out? Not her...never her...why should she do anything when we were right there and family was supposed to help each other? She kept going for treatments, and she got sicker from it, and she just got worse...then finally one day the doctors said they couldn't give her anymore treatments, the cancer had spread through her whole body, anymore treatments would kill her, and just go home and wait to die...and she did...and she made sure we were there every minute of the day tending to everything she wanted, and _nothing_ was ever good enough...when you're in a situation like that, you don't stop to think how it affects you, you don't realize that you are gradually falling into depression seeing this, being a part of it day in and day out and seeing no end in sight. Suddenly...there wasn't any time to do any of the stuff I used to, anything I wanted, I had to be on call every day...I had to do her shopping, run her errands, pay her bills, make her bank deposits, she had people coming to visit her, bring food, bring flowers, bring money, we had to pick up the house every time somebody was coming while she sat back and gave the orders, the women from her work would come and do Bunco parties, they'd started it years earlier, and every time she hosted, _we_ cooked, _we_ cleaned, _we_ set everything up and took it all down, and every time she made a big to do about how _she_ managed to do it all herself, she did _everything_ by herself. My mom would call me at all hours when I was out, Aunt Naomi fell down, we need to go pick her up, she's bleeding, we need to call the ambulance, we need to get the whole house ready for when she's released from the hospital...it's just never ending...and even if you love them, after a while you find yourself asking 'why don't they just _die_?', and when you _don't_ love them...you start asking that a lot sooner." She turned and looked at him and said with a weak laugh, "This is a hell of a thing to bring up on a first date, isn't it?"

"No, no, it's fine," Brian insisted.

"Anyway, the day finally came when she died...hip hip hooray, right? I should be happy, I have my life back...only by that time I had gotten used to sitting around the house doing little more than subconsciously emotionally eating...to some degree I always stayed active, most of it was just manual work around the house, I found time every summer to go swimming, I never took an elevator anywhere...but one day in the midst of it all, I put on a pair of jeans that I've worn for years, and I can't get them on anymore, not even a matter of they won't zip, I can't get them up my legs...somewhere between my aunt's diagnosis and her burial I put on 50 pounds. And of course, everybody loves to point out when you put on that much weight that you know it's happening so you should be able to stop it...let me tell you, it _does_ creep up on you...trade up 1X for a 2X, two sizes of jeans are only an inch apart, not a big deal...couple years go by, go up another size, so what? Then one day you really get a look at yourself in the mirror and wonder how the hell I got to this point? And it didn't go away when my aunt died, at that point I don't like to say I was in a depression but I was definitely in a funk over the way my life had gone...20s are supposed to be the best years of your life and most of mine were over and a large portion of them had all been wasted on an ungrateful woman who never did anything with her life, so decided it was fine to drain all she could out of ours. Nobody ever anticipates their lives turning out that way...over the next couple years I put on another 20 pounds...and yes, contrary to popular belief, I knew that was a problem and something had to be done, but when you get some peace and quiet for the first time in your life in years, you take advantage of it. Emotional stress is more tiring than physical stress, once my aunt was buried and all her affairs got settled, I didn't sleep much at night but I suddenly found myself sleeping through the better part of every afternoon for months on end...and the vicious cycle of resenting how my life ended up just repeated. There was no one moment where I decided something had to change, you know it for years, but there's always stuff going on that you push it off to the side and figure you'll deal with it later."

"Been there," Otis said, thinking back to his leukemia scare and the lengths he'd gone to to avoid finding out the answer. "So what finally happened?"

Alayna actually seemed amazed that he was still paying attention and seemed genuinely interested to find out more. She told him, "You can be tired of a situation you're in, but you have to be _really_ tired of it to finally do something about it, until you reach that point you can just keep your head down and muddle along as is." She said very simply, "I wanted my life back. But, I had not exactly been sitting idle all these years. I've been paying attention to all the breakthroughs in weight loss, and the hardest thing is just breaking away from what society tells us, that you have to take it off fast at any drastic cost. We know now that doesn't work, you take it off fast, you put it on faster, so I had to come to terms with the fact that it wouldn't be fast or easy. Way I've got it figured, you have to plan on at least a year to see real, long-term success, so the real challenge there is patience."

"Which nobody specializes in, trust me," Otis told her.

"Amen," she laughed. "But I decided to kill two birds with one stone. What the hell am I going to do until I actually lose the weight, hide in the house until everybody approves of how I look?" She shook her head. "Society can just deal with the fact that I'm here and I'm not hiding, and I'm going to enjoy my life _while_ I take this weight off...the burden is in their court now because I know I'm going in the right direction. So I go to the classes and I put up with the stares and snide remarks and even the pictures taken on everyone's phones." Alayna caught the look of outrage in Brian's eyes and quickly assured him, "Oh don't worry, Joe caught _one_ of the women doing that once and quickly showed her the door, the others got the message real quick if they wanted to stay and have him as their instructor, they had to behave, that's a very big motivator for them."

That got a laugh out of Brian.

"Anyway, it's been eight months so far," she told him.

"Whoa," that caught Brian by surprise, especially as he realized that that meant that she must've been a lot bigger initially than she was now.

"Part of why it feels so hopeless is where do you start? Especially with my background, it just felt like I should never have let myself get this far behind in the first place, how do I justify going back and starting over again now, when as a kid I could've done twice as much, twice as fast and twice as hard as I do now? But in the end, we all have to bite the bullet and begin in the beginning. So I started with low impact aerobics to get back in the swing of things...even if I get down to 100 pounds it's unlikely I'll ever be able to do anything high impact between my legs and my lungs, but I'm having a lot of fun finding that middle ground. My social calendar is actually very full these days. I take Joe's class twice a week, I go swimming three times a week. You'll never see me in a marathon, but I've walked two 5Ks this year."

"Oh wow," Brian felt his eyebrows jump.

"I'm the dead last one to finish, but I _finish_ ," Alayna told him with a hearty laugh. She uncrossed her legs and said, "Speaking of which, we better get back to our date before the whole night's over...incidentally am I still leading?"

For a moment Brian couldn't even comprehend forming any words. Unlike Severide, Brian had no problem looking for a serious relationship, and he'd had a few over the years that he thought were going someplace, all the same he'd never gone out with anyone with a story like he'd just heard and he wasn't even sure what the proper response was. Finally he settled for, "Sure...what've you got in mind now?"

* * *

Brian's lungs burned in his chest as he made his way down the stairs, keeping his hands on the rails incase he lost his footing. He'd had a lot of dates that got physical, but this was something new entirely.

Alayna was waiting at the bottom of the fire escape and clicked off the stopwatch on her phone. "27 seconds, that's great, right?"

Brian heaved in a breath, doubled over and answered, "In turnout gear, carrying a hose, that'd be great. What made you think of this?"

"Did I ever tell you I used to date a fireman?" she asked.

Brian tried to laugh but at the moment he didn't possess the lung capacity for it and instead he just about fell face first on the ground.

"You guys ever do that Firefighter Combat Challenge?" Alayna asked.

Otis straightened his spine and shook his head, "Uh no, no, we don't."

"How come?" she asked.

He opened his mouth to respond, then realized, "I don't know."

"Well, the one I used to date was training for it...don't know he actually made it, but he said all the guys who did, used this building to practice for it," she told him, "Sixth floor fire escape, just like they do in the competition. I'm trying to figure out who I need to talk to to see about getting a civilian version of these done, all the weights and obstacles, but for normal people, _without_ 80 pounds of regulation gear."

"Gotta tell you, I don't think there'd be a lot of takers on that one," Otis told her.

"Maybe not, but I wish somebody would, I'd have no problem trying it, and I know I would fail it and fail _hard_."

He looked at her and shrugged, "Then why would you want to do it?"

"To see how far I _could_ get. Can you time me now?"

Otis nodded as he took his phone out. "Yeah, get ready."

He watched as Alayna headed over to the bottom of the fire escape.

"Ready, set...go!"

With only the street lamp to see by, Otis watched as Alayna scurried up the fire escape, turning at each floor, the sound of her shoes clanging against the metal steps the only sound filling the night air. She reached the top, then turned around and scurried back down, like Brian, both hands on the rails. As she clattered down the last set of stairs, he looked at his phone and turned the timer off.

"37 seconds," he couldn't hide the shock from his face, "how..."

"Like you said," she told him as she tried to catch her breath, "It would be different with the turnout gear and a 40 pound hose...but given I'm carrying enough weight around for both of those things, I wouldn't say I did too badly."

Brian found himself laughing, and he asked her, "Do uh...you bring _all_ your dates here?"

"Not exactly the scenic route but it's good for some entertainment," she said. "Of course you realize, I can only date men who are in much better shape than I am."

Brian just about fell down laughing.

"None of them are serious," she told him. "I never dated when I was younger, I had a lot of hangups...I decided I might as well get out on the scene now that I still have some life in me, and I'm old enough to know what I'm after."

"Which is?"

"A good time, they don't last long, but there's always something left from each of them to remember."

"Oh please, don't share this with me," Brian put his hands over his ears.

Alayna poked him in the chest to get his attention, "I dated a fireman, and I dated a Cub, and I've dated a couple of Bears, also a tennis instructor, a personal trainer, a couple paramedics, a cop..."

"Quite a collection," Brian noted.

"And all of them have that same utter look of terror on their faces when they first meet me, as you had when I walked into the bar tonight," she said with a mischievous smile, which in turn transformed Brian's expression into yet another look of terror.

"I do a lot of blind dates, it's easier when they don't know what I look like," she explained. "By that time they realize how bad it'll look if they ditch me, and once they actually get to know me we actually wind up having a pretty good time. I have a certain type, all of them men with very physically demanding jobs, and I take away some pointers from each and every one of them to incorporate into my own life. The one thing you'll never see me dating is a Blackhawk."

Brian busted out laughing again as he guessed the reason why.

And in confirmation, Alayna told him, "You ain't _ever_ gonna see me on the ice with a couple little steel blades to hold me up."

Brian laughed so hard he could hardly breathe.

She smiled at him and asked, "Brian, do you know why Cruz set us up for a blind date?"

"Uh, no," Brian shook his head.

"Because he said we're a lot alike."

"Huh?" that caught him off guard.

Alayna giggled and explained, "He said that we're both in need of meeting someone new who likely won't turn into anything serious but in the meantime we could have a good time together. And you came very highly recommended."

"I did?"

"Yeah, he said you were a great guy who hadn't been out with a lot of women lately and needed to meet some new blood," she told him.

Brian stared at her for a couple seconds, then started laughing again and said only, "That seems to be the word for it."

The night air was getting colder and Otis pulled his jacket tighter and asked her, "You want to get out of here?"

"Sure...you know a good place to go dancing?" she asked.

He cocked his head and looked at her.

"The only way you'll ever see me run is to yell 'Fire!', but what I lack in speed, I make up for in endurance," Alayna told him and bumped her hip against his suggestively. "Ready to go?"

* * *

Cruz was waiting for him at 51 the next morning before shift started.

"Hey, how'd the date go last night?" he asked, perfectly cheerful as if he didn't have any idea what had happened.

"I hate you," Brian said simply as he marched over to his locker.

"What'd I do?" Cruz asked.

"First you catfish me, then you set me up with a woman who's 80 pounders heavier than me, and she has more stamina than I do!" Otis said.

"What're you talking about?" Joe asked.

Brian turned to him. "We walked all over Chicago until 3 in the morning, the better part of 6 hours walking all up and down this city in 30 degree weather, I'm chilled to the bones, my feet are killing me, I'm tired, and I'm on shift for the next 24 hours, I-hate-you."

"You didn't have a good time?"

"I had a great time, that's not the point," Brian told him. "I'm exhausted, and I got showed up by a woman whose idea of a good time is more physically demanding than a day at the gym. Is there a reason you couldn't have given me _some_ idea what to expect?"

"Otis, there's a reason why I set you up with Alayna. She's a fun person and I thought she'd have a good time with somebody from 51," Cruz said. "I can't go out with her, that violates our professional relationship. And you know Severide sure as hell wouldn't give her the time of day, he's too shallow."

"Huh, true," Brian realized.

"And Casey-"

"I don't even want to _think_ about that one," Otis told him.

Cruz looked at him and asked, "So?"

Brian looked back at him and parroted mockingly, "So-what?"

"You going out with her again?"

Otis seemed to actually consider it for a second before nodding, "Yeah...but definitely not when shift's the next day."

Cruz busted out laughing.


	6. Chapter 6

Dead of Night

A/N: Another serious one. Hope you like it!

Kelly Severide laid on his bunk in his quarters and stared up at the ceiling even though the whole room was nearly black. It had been a horrible shift, and he couldn't wait for 8 o' clock to come so he could go home and try to put the day behind him. He knew everybody felt the same way, even if they didn't admit it.

They'd been called to a multi-vehicle accident on the freeway, and in fact, so many vehicles had been involved, a second company had to be called in from a neighboring firehouse. There was never anything routine about any of the calls they got, but they'd responded to enough traffic accidents to know what they had to do, and get it done effectively and quickly.

There had been a candidate among the second company that responded to the accident. Young, eager, the way they all were, determined to jump in and help any way he could, ordinarily what everybody wanted in a candidate. He'd been helping to extract two people out of their car that was pinned against the fencing, the next thing anybody knew, one of the other firefighters was screaming, "Oh my God!"

A section of the fencing gave way and the candidate went over the edge and fell 50 feet. An additional ambo had been called in to assist, but the car almost went over the edge too and everybody had to scrambled to force it back. As soon as it was stable, Casey got a rope and rappelled down to try and assist the candidate, Severide was right behind him, but it was obvious it was too late. The ambulance seemed to get there just a few seconds after they touched down, they got the candidate loaded up and rushed him to Med, but by the time they finished on the overpass and everybody headed back to 51, the news had come in that he was DOA and there wasn't anything the paramedics or doctors could do. He was just 25 years old.

Nobody at 51 really knew any of the guys they'd been working with, but it didn't matter, all firefighters were family, and another house's loss was just as painful as if it had been one of their own. Nobody talked for the rest of the shift, nobody ate at dinner, after a while everybody went their own ways to the bunk room and their quarters for the night.

And here Severide was. He'd been laying on his bunk for over an hour, he wasn't going to sleep anytime soon, he didn't even know if he felt tired or not. He didn't know what he felt at that time. It wasn't an entirely unfamiliar feeling but he'd never been able to put a name to it.

Suddenly, there was a low knock on his door, and he heard it open, and he could make out the form of somebody coming in, he knew who it was.

"Can I come in?" Casey whispered.

Kelly nodded even though he knew Casey couldn't see him. "Sure."

The door closed, and Casey, acting on memory and impulse, made his way over to the bunk, and just about collapsed on it.

"Get over here." Severide sat up and moved over, then felt Casey's arms practically choking him, and felt the tremors running through his body, which coincided with the choked sounds he tried to suppress behind a set of gritted teeth so nobody else would hear him. Kelly let Casey get adjusted to holding onto him, then returned the embrace and held his best friend close as they both broke down sobbing.

* * *

Kelly opened his eyes and everything was still dark, but he felt Casey laying beside him, using part of his chest for a pillow. He didn't know how long they'd been asleep but he was grateful that Casey had finally stopped crying.

Being a firefighter at all and having to deal with the death of a fellow firefighter was hard as hell, but the position they were in made it harder. Being a lieutenant, Casey didn't feel that he could discuss certain things with the men in his command. Severide understood that, he never told his guys anything he didn't have to, but then again for him, that was a general rule of life, he never told _anybody_ anything unless he had to. In times of tragedy, it was recommended that everybody speak with the firehouse chaplain, but there was only so much you could say to someone like that, and talking to a therapist was a dead last resort when it meant your job if you didn't comply. All they really had to turn to was each other. With their own history, he knew Casey pretty well, and he knew at times like this, Casey struggled to get through the rest of the day until he could finally hole up in his office and not have to see or talk to anyone. Anyone except _him_ that was, and sometimes not even then.

This was not the first time that this had happened. After the rift between them following Andy's death, and the fact it took Herrmann almost dying on the job to force them into reconciliation to get all of them out of there alive, they'd finally reached an agreement they wouldn't let another death divide them like before. To make sure of that, one would go to the other's quarters at night when nobody would intrude on them. That more just happened than was just something they'd planned on. The first time had been after Hallie's murder, Casey had held everything together until Voight and his people caught her killer, that night he'd wandered over to Kelly's quarters and stayed with him until the sun came up the next day. As hard as Kelly had accepted Shay's death, when he did finally come back to 51, he'd crossed over to Casey's office and stayed with him for half the night. Sometimes they just talked, careful not to say anything loud enough to wake up anybody in the bunk room. Sometimes they never said anything, but both were in need of the presence of another human being to keep from losing their minds to the silence and the solitude and the _loss_. Other times...like last night...they held onto each other as they emotionally fell apart, finally feeling safe enough they were _able_ to in each other's presence. _Only_ in each other's presence, that had been the deal, nobody else was to know anything about it. _They_ knew the reasoning behind what they did, but it was unlikely anybody else would understand it, so it was just easier to avoid that part of it altogether.

Something else nobody else would ever understand, and Severide couldn't explain it, not even to Casey he couldn't, it was only times like this when Casey was in a dead sleep and oblivious to anything going on around him that Kelly felt safe enough to actually do what he did. He leaned down and lightly kissed Casey on the head. He couldn't pinpoint where he'd done it, but his lips made contact with Casey's hair. He couldn't explain _why_ he did it, and if Casey ever actually caught him at it he'd be embarrassed to death to admit it, but it was something he just felt he _had_ to do. There was no response from the man sleeping on him, so Severide took that as a good sign, and decided to bite the bullet.

"Casey, you awake?"

"Hmm?" Casey groaned as Kelly felt Casey turn his head to the side.

"You alright?"

Casey groaned tiredly and asked, "What time is it?"

Kelly reached over and grabbed his phone and was practically blinded by the light on the screen, but he answered, "5 o' clock."

Casey was more alert now and pushed back the covers. "I better get back before anybody finds out..."

It was what they always did. They had been fortunate so far that no calls came in in the middle of the night when this happened, so neither of them had to awkwardly explain anything to anybody, but early the next morning before everybody else got up, whoever bunked with whom for the night always crept back to their own quarters to act like everything was normal shortly before the day began.

Sheepishly, Casey said as he stood up. "Thanks, Kelly."

Severide stretched his arms clear above his head as he scooted into the middle of the bunk now that the other side was unoccupied, and he answered with a tired groan, "No problem...next time I'll come see you."

Casey stopped at the door and mentioned before he walked out, "I wish there wouldn't be a next time."

Kelly waited until he heard the door close, then he responded as he settled back under the blanket, "So do I."


	7. Chapter 7

One Angry Man

Capp entered the courthouse, and making his way past a group of other people, stopped to look at the paperwork that had come to him in the mail. He looked at the arrows on the wall but didn't get an answer where he was supposed to go. He went upstairs to a clerk's office and held up his papers, "I'm here for jury duty."

Without even looking up, the redheaded female clerk who looked to be in her late 20s, pointed and said, "You need to go down the hall then."

"But I'm not supposed to be here," Capp told her.

That got her attention and she looked up. "You were summoned?"

"Yeah."

"Then you need to go to the courtroom down the hall," she told him.

"But I filled out the form and told them why I can't be here," Capp said.

"Did you receive another summons?" she asked.

"Yes. I called here and explained why I can't be here," Capp said.

"I'm sorry, I don't remember talking to you," she told him.

"I don't think I _did_ talk to you," he told her. "The woman I talked to sounded..."

The woman arched her eyebrows, waiting for the last word.

"Black."

"That's Jamie Archer, she's the clerk downstairs," the woman said.

"Well I told her I can't be on the jury," Capp told her. "She said I'd have to see the judge and explain it to her in person."

"That's your right," she replied.

"But where _is_ the judge?" Capp asked.

"In her chambers."

Capp nodded slowly, then asked, "Where's her chamber?"

The clerk looked at the clock and told him, "You need to head over to the courtroom, everybody needs to be seated in ten minutes."

"But I need to talk to the judge," Capp said.

"You'll just have to explain your situation when you're called," she said simply.

Capp sighed and shook his head and headed out of the office and followed the arrows down a set of twists and turns before he came to a line of people who were being wanded by security before they were allowed in the courtroom. Rolling his eyes, he stuffed the paper in his jacket pocket and took his place in line. 10 people got in ahead of him, and he passed through the metal detector and held his arms out to the sides as the security guard wanded him before giving him the okay to go in.

The courtroom was full of people who were all murmuring to each other while they waited for the judge to arrive, most of the gallery seats were full. He found an empty section a few rows down from the entrance, and sat down in the third one and waited.

"Excuse me," a voice drew him out of his thoughts.

Capp turned and saw a 30-something blonde woman in gray college sweats and white sneakers and she asked him, "Is somebody sitting here?"

Capp turned and looked behind him and saw the rest of the bench was empty. He shook his head and scooted over so she could sit down.

"You're here for jury duty too?" he asked.

"Not if I have anything to do with it," she said with a small laugh as she seated herself next to him.

"I'm not supposed to be here either," he told her.

"You been called before?" she asked.

"Uh...once...long time ago."

"This is the 6th time they've called me," she told him. "Most of the time they just settle out of court before this point, I was hoping they would again."

Capp nodded in understanding. He turned towards her and held his hand out. "I'm Harold."

"Nice to meet you," she shook his hand, "I'm Thelma." She sighed as she looked to the front and said, "I hope I'm in the first batch they call so I can get the hell out of here."

"Any particular reason?"

"Yeah, I work nights at a call center and I can't take a week off of work for what they pay jurors," she answered. "You?"

"I'm a firefighter," he answered.

Thelma straightened in her seat a little and looked towards the door and asked, "You supposed to be working today?"

"Tomorrow," Capp told her.

"Damn, I guess they really _do_ pick everyone at random," she commented.

A door opened, a court officer came in and announced, "All rise for the Honorable Judge Louise Claxton."

Everybody stood up as a middle aged woman entered the courtroom and took her seat and told them, "You may be seated."

The judge talked for several minutes about why everybody was there and how it was going to work, introduced the court reporter and explained the necessity of verbal and coherent answers for her sake, and added that those who hadn't shown up would be paid a visit by law enforcement, and for those present to come to the jury box as their names were called. Several names called turned out to be no-shows, seven people were already called to the box when Thelma's name was called, she got up and joined the others, then the rest of the box was filled. There were 6 metal folding chairs in front of the jury box for alternative jurors.

"Harold Capp."

Showtime. He stood up, walked down the aisle, and took his spot in the front row. After another 10 minutes, the rest of the chairs were filled as well. The judge went over questions about did anybody have any medical problems that would make it difficult for them to sit there for several hours each day during the trial, did anybody have a hearing problem that might make it difficult for them to understand what was being said, etc. A few people answered as such. The judge explained that they were there for a criminal trial, and it would be up to them to study the evidence presented and determine if the defendant was innocent or guilty. She also told them the trial was expected to be 5 days, and asked if anybody had any reasons why they believed they wouldn't be able to sit on the jury for a week, work, family emergency, etc. Several hands went up, Capp's included, but despite him sitting in the front row, the judge didn't get to him right away. Instead he had to listen to the people around him talk about jobs they had, pets they had to take care of, children or elderly parents they had to tend to. After a while he got tired of waiting and put his hand down, and the judge must've forgotten because when everyone else was done answering, she didn't question him. Then he realized the woman he'd been sitting with hadn't answered, he turned in his seat and looked back at her, and she just shrugged. The look in her eyes suggested she was waiting for another question to put in her two cents. Capp turned to the front again as the prosecutor and the defense walked in, as did the defendant, who was dressed in fancy civilian clothes and _not_ walking with anything shackled up. He listened as both lawyers got up to talk separately, stating that the defendant, one Steven Grady, was arrested on charges of arson and murder, accused of setting fire to an apartment complex he owned in an attempt to collect on the insurance, in which one Phyllis Marshall, age 87, died in the fire. Capp's hand immediately went up again.

"Sir, you have to wait for someone to ask you a question," the judge told him.

At 51 Capp had a reputation as the goofball of the bunch, but even he knew not to get stuck with a contempt citation, so he kept what he was going to say to himself and folded his arms against his chest as he waited. A couple minutes later one of the lawyers asked if anybody had ever worked for the CFD, did they know anybody who worked at CFD, that would in any way impair their ability to remain impartial. Capp's hand went up again, but once again he was passed over for someone else.

"Yes, Miss, what is your name?" the lawyer asked.

"Thelma Ferber."

Capp turned and looked back at the woman he'd been talking to, now she was sitting up straight in her chair and looked like she was ready to drop the ball.

"And do you have a reason you believe you wouldn't be able to remain impartial if selected for this jury?"

"Yeah," she answered without missing a beat, "I used to date an arson investigator who was very opinionated and liked to talk about his work while we were together."

Her voice was convincing enough but there was something in her eyes that told Capp that that was a bold faced lie, struggling to maintain a straight face himself, he turned back to the front and raised his hand again. But he was once again overshadowed by other people who used to be volunteer firemen, who had firefighters in their family, it did not seem possible to Capp that so many people in the first 18 selected should've been able to fit that category. After a while he got tired of waiting for everybody else to answer, so to make sure he wasn't passed over this time he raised both arms high over his head and waved them to get somebody's attention.

"Yes, you..." the attorney consulted the list, "Mr. Capp. Is there a reason you feel you wouldn't be able to remain impartial if selected for this jury?"

"Yes," Capp answered simply.

"And what is that reason?"

"Well for one, I'm a currently active firefighter at Firehouse 51," he answered.

There was a stir of people murmuring, and the defense and his client exchanged a mutual look, as did the defense and the prosecution.

"Did you know when you came here today what this case was for?"

"No, but I tried to explain to the court that I couldn't serve on this jury because I'm on shift for two of the five days of the trial...but I guess somebody didn't get what I was trying to say because I was told to come in anyway, and that I'd have to explain my situation to the judge, but there wasn't time for that because they were already calling everyone in. But there is another reason I don't feel I could sit on this jury with a shred of impartiality."

"And what is that?"

Capp looked at the lawyer in the expensive suit, and without missing a beat he explained, "Because five years ago, we at 51 responded to a building fire which turned out to be a small business the defendant co-owned, who we believed intentionally torched the building so he and his partner could collect on the insurance. The arson squad was brought in to investigate and they determined that there had in fact been an accelerant used at the source of the fire, but there wasn't enough physical evidence to tie Mr. Grady back to it given fires tend to eat up all evidence of arson, hence why it _is_ one of the hardest crimes to prove. However I can say that the investigators were forced to sit on a lot of evidence they found, and commented if anybody could've brought a civil suit against Mr. Grady for damages caused by the fire, they would've been able to present far more evidence they found in their investigation, than they would legally be allowed to testify to in a criminal trial."

Half of the courtroom was silent, the other half was abuzz with this newfound information, and the defense attorney looked like he was going to choke.

The judge noted the time and said they would be taking a 15 minute break so the lawyers could make their decisions about who they would be picking for the jury. Capp left the room with everyone else, and he heard a familiar voice behind him and turned to see Thelma running to catch up with him.

"Do you have any idea what you just did?" she asked.

"Yeah," he answered, "I made damn sure nobody in that courtroom can possibly think that son of a bitch innocent. The daycare next door to his business caught fire that day, three kids were treated for second degree burns, seven for smoke inhalation, but nobody could touch the bastard."

"I can hear that lawyer now, 'Strike for cause, this potential juror knows too much!' If he doesn't try to call the whole thing a mass conspiracy to taint the jury pool, I'll be surprised. Why the hell did they make you show up?" the blonde woman asked him.

"That's what I've been trying to find out," Capp told her. "I told everybody I couldn't be here, nobody listened, someone said tell the clerk, the clerk said tell the judge, the clerk here isn't the same clerk I talked to, and before I could find out where the judge was, they were bringing us in," he explained.

She laughed and said, "This will be one case _nobody_ will forget."

"Did you really date an arson investigator?" Capp asked her.

"No," she answered, "but it sounded like a good way to get excused." She stifled her smirk and said more seriously, "Oh but I feel horrible about it after what you just did."

He smiled at her and nodded, "It's okay, I get it. Nobody wants to be here."

"I can't _afford_ to be here. I work nights so I can get a few hours' sleep at the crack of dawn, so I can stay home with my daughter until she starts kindergarten," Thelma explained, the burnout clear in her voice.

"How old is she?" Capp asked.

"Three. My mom watches her while I'm at work, when she starts school I can switch to a daytime job, but I'm not having her raised by strangers her whole life, there's going to be enough of that when she actually starts school. I want her to remember _me_ when she grows up, that I was _there_."

Capp felt the smile on his face widen even more. "That's nice. They didn't have as many kids in daycare when I was growing up but my mom-"

A court officer informed everybody in the hall that they needed to return to the courtroom, and everybody was asked to return to their original seats in the gallery. The judge came back out and announced, "We are going to call some people's names to come back down to the jury box."

A few names were called, but Capp wasn't among them, and neither was Thelma. When they finished addressing people, the judge told the people still in the gallery, "If you were among the first group of people called earlier, and you did not hear your name called, you are excused from jury duty and are free to leave, you will be excused from jury duty for a year, and on your way out see the clerk about being paid for your services. The court thanks you for your time."

One by one, people got up and piled out of the courtroom. Behind them, more names were being called for more people to come to the front.

"Of course you realize," Thelma said as they walked down the corridor, "you just guaranteed that defense is going to push for a change of venue, and they'll have to start all over again."

"Probably," Capp replied, "but at least it's going to make things a little harder for that prick." He looked around and finally asked her, " _Where_ is the clerk I have to see?"

She laughed and said, "Come on, I'll show you."


	8. Chapter 8

Bundle from Heaven

Truck, Squad and Ambo slowly rolled back onto the apparatus floor at 51. They'd gone out over two hours ago to respond to a multi-vehicle accident, and the whole thing was finally over, everybody was relieved, everybody was sore and tired, and there was still one more item to tend to.

Severide hopped off the Squad rig and went over to 81 and looked up at Casey in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead with a stoic expression on his face.

"You need a hand?" Kelly asked as he opened the door for Casey to get out.

"I got it," Casey replied as he carefully stepped down and out of the rig, a 6-year-old girl with red curls and a Kermit the Frog jumper, in tow in his arms as she clung to his shirt with both hands.

Connie had been passing by and saw the firemen as they reentered the station house, and this curious sight left her standing in the middle of the floor with high eyebrows.

"What happened on that call?" she asked Severide.

Kelly sighed and explained, "We roll up, three cars smashed into each other, two are T-boned in the street, the third one's upside down just past the curb."

"That kid was thrown through the window when her dad swerved off the road," Otis chimed in. "The idiot didn't have her strapped in or anything, she was riding in the front with him."

"Turns out the cops had a BOLO on the car and an Amber alert," Mouch added, "he kidnapped his own daughter from her school in Indiana right after his ex-wife dropped her off."

"Dad was killed on impact," Severide told her, "she was lucky, docs at Med cleared her and said she just got banged up."

"And..." Connie let her facial movements finish her question, _why_ had the girl been brought back to 51 with them?

"Casey was the one that found her, now she won't let go of him, he had to ride with her to Med," Severide told her.

"She has a screaming fit if anybody else tries to take her," Herrmmann said.

"The hospital contacted her mother, she's on the way, but 51 is closer for her than the hospital, so we're waiting for her to come here and get her daughter," Otis added.

"And again, the _only_ person she'll let near her...is Casey," Severide concluded. "We called Boden and gave him the heads up, he said it was okay to bring her here till the mom gets her."

Speaking of whom. Wallace exited his office and came out to see what was going on. He looked at the child Casey had been holding ever since they left the hospital, she had a bandage over her eyebrow and another on her tiny wrist, but other than that seemed unscathed.

"Well aren't you a cute little girl?" Boden said with a friendly smile as he reached a hand out to her.

The girl responded with a loud high pitched scream that filled the whole station.

"Eh, don't take it personally, Chief," Herrmann told him, "she's done the same thing to _all_ of us. Docs figure Casey must remind her of somebody she trusts. We all tried to take her, she kicked, she screamed, she bit...we all tried, every time she just ran right back to Casey."

"I'll see what I can do about my incident report," Casey said as he adjusted his hold on the girl.

"Understood," Boden replied. "Anything we can do to help?"

"Just...keep your distance," Matt sighed.

"Will do."

Connie waited until Casey had gone to his quarters and asked Severide, "What's her name?"

"Jolene Harris...the mom's name is Nadine."

Connie said nothing, merely nodded, and went back to her desk.

* * *

Casey lucked out and was able to get Jolene to sit on his bunk while he wrote up his report. He knew that the people at Med said she was fine, but he couldn't help wondering if she was still in shock. Aside from screaming anytime someone got too close, she hadn't said a word since they'd found her. And in fact, she hadn't even been crying when he found her by the side of the road, she'd just been curled up in a ball holding her arm. And now...every so often he looked over, she just sat on the bed and stared at him, very intently for a first grader. She pursed her lips together, as if making sure she didn't speak. He knew some kids went through strange phases but he wasn't sure if that was one of them.

When he was alone he didn't mind the office being quiet, but with a child, who his recollection was they were balls of energy usually bouncing off the walls, the silence was starting to become maddening to him.

"Your mommy should be here soon to get you..." he turned to her, "you excited about seeing her?"

The little girl just nodded.

Casey could already tell it was going to be a long wait until her mother got there.

"You're in school?" he tried again.

She nodded again.

"What grade?"

Jolene held up one finger.

"Oh yeah? You like it?"

She scrunched her lips up to her nose and shrugged.

"I see," Casey said as he turned back to his work. "I never liked school much either as a kid."

"Why?" a small, curious voice asked.

Casey turned back around and looked at her with widened eyes.

The 6 year old sat crosslegged on the bunk and still had her lips pursed together, but something in her eyes told the Truck lieutenant that something had just changed.

Casey shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know...always thought it was boring. Problem is now," he tapped his pen against the papers, "I have far more homework than I ever did in school."

Jolene giggled, showing one front tooth just starting to come in.

* * *

Casey exited his quarters carrying Jolene in his arms once again.

"You have to use the bathroom?" he asked.

"No," she answered simply.

"You hungry?"

"No."

As long as no calls came in, they shouldn't have too much trouble, though Casey was starting to wonder when her mom was going to come and get her.

"You want to watch TV?" he asked.

"Yeah," she nodded.

"Okay, we can do that," he said as he headed for the common room.

Casey was not oblivious to the fact that the room was empty. He could hear muffled sounds and chatter coming from the general direction of the apparatus floor.

"Okay," Casey sat down on the couch and maintaining a hold on her with one hand, picked up the remote with the other. "What do you want to watch?"

The 6 year old used both of her little hands to pry the remote out of his, used her thumbs to punch in a code, and up came a channel playing reruns of The Three Stooges.

"Good choice," Matt commented.

Almost instantly, Jolene busted out laughing at the antics on the screen. Looking at her now was a completely different experience to when they found her in the aftermath of the crash, almost as if nothing had happened. Casey watched her face light up, and despite his better judgment, he felt his heart melt.

* * *

"Hey Casey, wake up."

Matt felt somebody shaking his shoulder, he opened his eyes and saw Severide standing over him. He also noticed a 40 pound weight gone from his lap.

"What happened? Where's Jolene?"

"Connie managed to get her away from you when you fell asleep."

"The mom still hasn't shown up?"

"Not yet," Kelly said, "And I don't know how much more stuff Connie can make out of paperclips to keep that kid occupied."

"She still won't let anyone else get near her?" Casey asked.

"Nope...whatever the story is between her parents, her dad must've really messed her up."

Casey yawned and commented, "I wonder why she went with him? She screams blue murder every time any man gets near her."

"Except you," Kelly noted. "She didn't like EMS or the nurses at the hospital getting around her either...I don't know much about kids but this seems to go beyond any normal fear of strangers."

"Given what just happened today, we can probably guess why," Casey said. "If you live in fear of your own father, who _would_ you trust?"

* * *

Connie saw Casey and Severide approaching and pointed behind Jolene and told the girl, "Show him your new necklace you're going to take back to Indiana."

The redhead turned in her chair and held up the paperclip necklace she was wearing that had a fire department emblem cut out of a yellow Post-it note that had been reinforced with a few layers of scotch tape so it was stiff and held in place.

"Connie, you're a miracle worker," Casey said.

"I know," she replied coyly.

Matt laughed and picked the girl up and told her, "There's someone here who wants to see you."

Down the corridor came a petite blonde 30-something woman in cut up jeans who looked like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "Oh my God, Jolene!"

"Mommy!" the girl frantically kicked Casey and squirmed in his grasp until he set her down and she took off running straight into her mother's arms.

"Oh my God, my baby!" Nadine Harris could hardly breathe, "I was so worried about you. Are you okay?"

"Yep."

The mother just about collapsed as she weakly laughed at her daughter's simple answer. She lifted Jolene onto her hip and the redhead nestled her face in her mother's shoulder to look over her back, as Nadine told the two lieutenants, "I don't know how to thank you for saving my daughter."

"No need to thank us, we were just doing our job," Severide told her.

"Thank you very much," she heaved a large sigh of relief. She turned her head and asked her daughter, "You gonna say goodbye?"

Jolene pursed her lips together and shook her head.

"She's very shy," Nadine explained.

"It's okay," Casey said. "She's been no trouble."

"Thank you again," she said as she shook their hands, then turned around and walked off.

Over Nadine's shoulder, Jolene waved a silent goodbye to the two firemen, who smiled and waved in return.

Once mother and daughter were gone, Kelly turned to Casey and asked him, "You alright?"

"Yeah," Casey said, "why?"

Instead of answering, Severide told him, "You know when you _do_ have kids, you're gonna be a great dad."

Casey choked on a laugh and remarked, "We'll see."


	9. Chapter 9

Pins and Needles

"Oh good, you're still here," Will Halstead said as he walked up to the two lieutenants who hadn't yet left the hospital.

"Yeah," Kelly held up his hand, "Had to get a couple stitches."

"How are they doing?" Casey asked.

"That's what I needed to talk to you about," Will said. "How close of contact did you have with the people you pulled out of that semi?"

Kelly and Casey looked at each other with matching expressions of confusion as they tried to figure out what Will meant.

"There were 30 immigrants stuffed in the back of a big rig that somebody just abandoned by the side of the road, they'd been in there for probably close to a week from the time they got across the border, I'd say close contact is an understatement," Kelly said.

"Did any of them cough or sneeze on you?"

"I don't...why?" Kelly realized that the conversation was more serious than he'd thought a minute ago. "What's wrong? What do they have?"

"Do you know exactly where they came from?" the doctor asked.

"If I had to guess...somewhere in Central America, why?" Casey asked. "What's this all about?"

Halstead looked at them both and said, "Would you mind coming back with me? I'd rather not discuss it here."

* * *

"What do you mean they have polio?" Kelly was screaming at Will once he finished explaining what they'd found in their tests.

"Kelly, calm down," Will said.

"Calm down? You're saying we could all be paralyzed?"

"No, I am _not_ saying that, _nobody_ brought in shows any signs of paralysis. We had an interpreter talk to them, they've been sick for over a week...they would definitely have been showing some clear sign of meningitis or paralysis by now," Will explained.

"But they _do_ have polio," Casey said.

"I said they have poliovirus," Will corrected him. "Since there haven't been any reported cases of polio in America for 40 years, most people don't know much about it except that it can paralyze you, but that's actually the rarest form of the disease there is."

"So what do they have?" Casey asked.

"Polio is actually what we only refer to the paralyzing form, as far as I can tell, these people only have the minor version."

"Okay, what does that mean?" Kelly asked.

"Most people who get it never know they're even sick because they have no symptoms, the next chunk of them experience flu-like symptoms, which is what we're seeing here, headaches, chills, muscle stiffness, nausea. And because of that, it is very possible we actually have had a lot of cases of poliovirus in this country in that same 40 year time span, and just didn't know it, because nobody's going to get tested for polio if they don't feel sick, and they won't get tested for polio when it's flu season and everybody who comes in has some strain of flu. Normally the non-paralyzing form of polio clears up in 5 days but given we know absolutely nothing of their medical history and how malnourished and dehydrated and exhausted they were when they were brought in and the living conditions they likely came from, I can't really say I'm surprised that it seems to be dragging on."

"So if we get it, we'll be fine, right?" Kelly asked.

"You guys would likely be fully recovered within 5 days, but you would still be contagious for 2 weeks after that...and symptoms would likely start between 10 and 14 days from now. Have either of you two been vaccinated for polio?"

"No, I don't think so," Kelly said.

Casey shrugged his shoulders.

"Okay, strictly as a precaution we're going to want everyone who was at the scene to come in and get vaccinated, but I should warn you if any of you would happen to get it, you _will_ make a full recovery, but you would also be at risk for post-polio syndrome in the future."

The two lieutenants looked at each other again.

"What's that?" Kelly asked.

"Nobody knows what causes it, but several years after having polio you can start to experience joint pain, muscle weakness, difficulty breathing and swallowing, muscular wasting, sleep apnea, intolerance to the cold."

"We're firefighters, we're _already_ intolerant to the cold," Kelly said dryly.

"And that's another thing..." Will told them. "Being firefighters and doing the physically strenuous work you do, would only make the condition worse, and could even increase you risk of even getting the disease. You would no longer be able to push yourselves to the point of exertion on or off the job."

"When?" Kelly asked. "How long after?"

"At least 15 years," Will said, "sometimes 30."

They both took this news in slowly, and both with very different reactions. Kelly paced anxiously around the room, Casey looked like he'd been punched in the gut.

"And there's nothing that can be done for it?" Casey asked. "There's no cure or treatment?"

"Right now there's only management of the symptoms by adapting to a less strenuous lifestyle and physical therapy," Will explained. "It's not to say that if you _did_ get it in 20 years, that they wouldn't have some treatment for it then...and there's a good chance that you won't have to worry about it at all because we're going to get you vaccinated right away. But as a doctor I have a moral obligation to let you know what all the possibilities are."

Kelly couldn't even talk.

"Thanks, Will," Casey managed to drudge up. "It's a shock, but I guess we had to know. I'll call the others and tell them to come in."

Halstead nodded and replied, "I'll get everything ready." With that, he turned and walked out of the room.

Casey turned to Kelly to say something, but just as he opened his mouth, Kelly turned his back to him and stormed out of the room.

"Kelly!"

* * *

"Who is it?" Kelly called from inside the apartment in response to the knocking.

"It's me," Casey answered, "Can I come in?"

There was silence for a minute, then he heard the chain being taken off and the bolt being undone. Kelly opened the door a couple inches, then held it open. "Come on in."

"Hope you don't mind," Casey held up a bottle, "Figured you shouldn't be drinking alone."

"I've already been drinking," Kelly said with a notable slur as he shut the door.

"How're you doing?" Matt asked.

"Fine, terrific," Severide dryly remarked. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Casey set his bottle on the table. "I know you're scared, Kelly, we all-"

"I'm not scared of anything," Kelly cut him off.

"Oh yeah? Then why'd you run out of the room after Will told us the news?" Casey asked.

"I had to clear my head," Kelly insisted.

Casey picked up the almost empty bottle on the table, "Clear it with 80 proof?"

Kelly sat down on the couch, his eyes bloodshot and only half opened. "Get off my back, Casey."

"Incase you forgot," Casey rolled up his sleeve and showed the bandage on his arm, "I'm at risk for this too, we all are." In a less defensive tone as he rolled his sleeve back down, he told Kelly, "You're not going through this alone."

"You heard Will," Kelly told him. "If this happens...in 15 years we'll be done for at 51."

"I wasn't aware you could think that far ahead," Casey said, trying to lighten the mood. "You'd sure never guess it from all the nights you got so drunk you had to walk home because the bartender took your keys."

"Shut up," Kelly closed one eye completely and tiredly rubbed it, "I'm not in the mood."

"Will also said it could be 30 years, we'll be long since retired by then," Casey pointed out.

"I can't think of that," Kelly said. He looked up at Casey, the fear showing plain in his eyes as he told him, "The day I can't be a firefighter anymore, I have nothing..."

"Kelly, you can't think like that," Casey said as he made his way over to the couch and sat next to him. "The day's gonna come."

"I don't want to think about that either," Kelly replied, looking away.

"Kelly," Casey spoke slowly and calmly as if he was trying to make a point to an impatient child. "We all love the job, none of us can imagine doing anything else...but life goes on." Matt saw the lines around Kelly's jaw tightening in a grimace and saw his eyes squeeze shut, trying to hide what Casey could already see. "It's not the end of the world, Severide."

Any front Kelly had been able to put up before just came crashing down as he tearfully confessed, "I wish Shay was here."

Casey wrapped an arm around Kelly and pulled his best friend against him as his whole body wracked with sobs.

"It's going to be alright, Kelly, it's going to be alright."

* * *

Kelly sat on the floor against his bed, his hands cupped over his face as he shook and sobbed. The sun was pouring through the windows but he'd already been up for a couple hours.

Finally, he pushed himself onto his feet, found his balance, and trudged into the bathroom and looked at his reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror. He looked as bad as he felt. He knew what he had to do and he pulled himself together enough to get dressed, get in his car and drive to Med.

"Kelly," Will was just heading in when he saw the lieutenant coming towards him, "What's go-"

"The vaccine didn't work," Kelly told him, "I'm sick."

It had been 12 days since they'd rescued the immigrants from the truck.

"When did you first notice symptoms?" Will asked.

"I woke up with a stiff neck and a sore back yesterday when we were getting ready to go off shift, I just thought it was the work we'd done the day before," Kelly frantically explained. "My throat's killing me, my head's killing me, I threw up twice earlier."

Will nodded reassuringly. "Okay, we'll take you in and run some tests."

* * *

After Will collected some throat secretions to run a test on, he had Severide confined to a hospital bed until further notice, where Kelly promptly fell to pieces. He lay in the bed wringing his hands and shaking, half from chills, half from total fear as he thought about what fate awaited him now.

He wasn't aware he'd closed his eyes until he felt somebody's hand on him and heard Casey's voice over him saying, "Take it easy, Kelly."

Severide opened his eyes and saw Matt standing by the bed.

"Casey, what're you doing here?" he asked. "Will called you?"

"No. I called Will."

"What?"

"I've been calling him every day to see if you came in," Casey said calmly.

Kelly by comparison was frantic. "Casey, you've gotta get out of here, I'm infected."

"Kelly...it's too late," Casey pointed out. "If you have it, then I have it, and if we both have it, we're both going to get through it and deal with whatever comes next. Now move over."

Kelly was slow to figure out what Matt was saying, but caught on and scooted over so Casey could get in the bed beside him. Casey just looked at him, as nonchalant as if nothing was wrong.

"Why didn't you call me when you weren't feeling well? I would've come over," Matt told him.

Kelly shook his head. "I couldn't...I just couldn't."

"You shouldn't have been alone," Casey said. "That just makes things worse."

Kelly weakly laughed. " _Worse_?"

"Okay, Kelly," Will said as he entered the room, "We got the results back on your tests, you were right, you _are_ sick."

Kelly groaned and closed his eyes. "I knew it."

"But it's not poliovirus," Will told him.

Kelly opened his eyes wide in disbelief. "What?"

"You do not have any form of polio," Will repeated. "The tests were negative. What you have, is the flu."

It took a few seconds for his words to actually register with Severide. "The flu?"

"Yes, and we will get you some antivirals that should help with that," Will told him. "You know the rest, stay in bed, drink plenty of liquids, take it easy for a few days."

Kelly looked at Casey and tried to say something, but his brain couldn't work right in that moment to save his life. He groaned and ran his hands down his face and asked Casey, "You knew?"

"Did I know you were gonna get the flu?" Casey asked as he turned on his side, "No, not at first...but I figured you'd work yourself up in a frenzy over something...then when _I_ came down with the flu last week..."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, I stopped in after shift to get tested like you did...and he gave me the same pills, and a heads up, they're a bitch to take, but they help," Casey told him.

"Oh man," Kelly groaned, "I've been worried all this time for nothing?"

"It's easy to do, Kelly," Will said. "People hear polio and everybody thinks worst case scenario and given its history it's understandable why, and waiting to see if anything actually happens only makes it all the more excruciating."

"Thanks, Will," Casey said.

"Yeah, thanks, Will," Kelly added sarcastically as he flopped back against the pillow.

Casey propped himself up on one elbow and watched Kelly as he covered his face with his hands and writhed around on the bed simultaneously crying and laughing in relief.

"Feeling better?" Matt asked.

Kelly lowered his hands and looked at him. "Yeah, some...but my head's still killing me, and I'm still sore and freezing."

"Go home, get some sleep," Casey said simply, "You'll feel better when you wake up."

Kelly looked at him and somberly told him, "Thank you."

Casey shook his head. "I didn't do anything."

"Yes you did," Kelly hugged his best friend. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."


	10. Chapter 10

Concussion

 _Slam_!

"GAH!"

Everything went black and Casey felt himself fall on one knee. Around him he heard a clatter of people rushing towards him on the apparatus floor.

"What happened, Casey?"

"Are you okay?"

There was a stabbing pain in the back of his head and it hurt too much to even open his eyes.

"Casey are you alright?"

He chanced raising his eyelids and everything was a blur, he immediately closed them again.

"Talk to me, man, what is it?"

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew what had happened, but he couldn't form any words to explain it. One of the compartment doors on the side of the rig hadn't been fully closed and he'd stood up under it too quickly. Casey was aware of one long continuous groan making its way out of his body, he didn't know where it came from, and he couldn't make it stop. He heard people around him talking but he couldn't make out anything they were saying except for a few stray words. He felt hands on him, he didn't know what they were doing. He tried opening his eyes again, everything wasn't just blurry, it was shaking, and the light made his head throb that much worse, and now he could also feel his stomach starting to turn. No, not turning, he could feel a sickening pulsation somewhere in it. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut again and felt his other knee hit the floor. He didn't open his eyes again, but now he felt everything shaking and moving, he didn't know what was going on, but he just wanted it to stop.

* * *

Casey felt hot and cold, the back of his head and his neck were cold, everything under his neck was burning up. He slowly opened his eyes and saw everybody standing around him. Moving his eyes he was able to make out that he was in the bunk room.

"How're you feeling, Casey?" Herrmann asked.

"What...happened?" he asked, not even sure of how he'd gotten there.

"We took you to Med, they said you have a concussion," Kelly told him.

Casey tried to raise a hand to his face to scratch around his eye but both his hands were tangled in the covers and he had to struggle to get them loose.

"I don't remember..."

"They said it wasn't serious, all the same they were adamant about taking it easy the next couple days."

Casey took a moment to let the words sink in, he started to push back the covers and tried to sit up, and tried to insist, "I'm fine, I can work through a headache-"

Now Boden was there. Where had he come from? Now he _really_ towered over Matt.

"Nothing doing, Casey, you're officially off shift, Herrmann's acting lieutenant for the rest of the day. All the same you're staying here so we can keep an eye on you just to make sure there are no sudden complications."

Casey felt his eyelids trying to close, he kept them half open as he tried to respond, "Chief..."

"That's an order, Casey," Boden told him.

Casey closed his eyes and sighed in defeat. "Yes, sir." Then he realized that his head was up much higher than it should've been. He turned and realized that they'd stacked five pillows under him _and_ an ice pack.

"You're not supposed to lay down flat, but we couldn't keep you propped up on the couch either," Kelly explained.

Casey groaned as he turned over on his side. Right now his pride was hurting as much as his head, how could he be taken out of commission for something as petty as standing up under a door?

He felt a hand on his shoulder, he couldn't tell whose from the touch, but he could from the voice that accompanied it.

"Take it easy, Casey, we got you covered."

"Thanks, Chief," Casey tiredly moaned as he closed his eyes.

* * *

Casey woke up again around 6 o' clock as Herrmann was putting the finishing touches on the dinner it was his turn to cook. The supermarket had had a special on all the turkeys they hadn't been able to sell over the Christmas season, so 51 was having a Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of February, and everybody was looking forward to it. Casey actually felt hungry and went with the others to dish up, but the smell of the food was enough to turn his stomach again and send him running out of the kitchen.

Severide headed to the bunk room and found Casey sitting on the bed looking like he was trying to decide whether to throw up or not.

"You okay?" he asked.

Casey grunted something in answer. He looked up and saw Kelly brought him a sandwich on a plate and something to drink.

"Sorry, I know it's not what you wanted, but if you can keep anything down, you need to eat."

"Thanks," Casey reluctantly took the plate. Through the bread he could smell the warm turkey, on its own the smell wasn't nearly as overwhelming. He bit off a small corner and slowly chewed, waiting to see what happened.

Severide sat down on the bunk next to his and asked, "So how're you doing otherwise?"

Casey thought before he answered. "I kind of remember hitting my head...but I still don't remember what happened after...just waking up here."

"It'll come back to you, don't worry. How's your head?"

"Hurts," Casey answered simply.

"Bad?"

Casey shot him a knowing look, pointing out if it wasn't, he wouldn't be in the bunk room trying not to puke.

"Look," Kelly told him, "I'm going to be staying here tonight."

"I don't need a babysitter, Kelly."

"I know, just, if you can't sleep, if you want to talk, I'll be here."

Casey slowly nodded. "Thanks."

"And don't worry," Kelly patted his knee as he stood up, "We'll stash away a doggie bag for you for tomorrow."

Casey laughed over the mouthful of the sandwich he was chewing.

* * *

It was dark when he woke up, and it would've been quiet except for the various volumes of everyone around him breathing and snoring. He turned his head to the left and saw Kelly asleep on the next bunk, as promised.

"Kelly," Casey whispered, then tried again, a little louder, "Kelly."

A breath caught in Severide's throat as he choked himself awake and shot up, "I'm here, I'm right here, what is it?"

"I still can't remember anything," Casey told him.

Kelly swung his legs around to the floor and asked him, "Remember what?"

"I still can't remember what happened after I hit my head," Casey said.

Kelly looked at him. It was obvious that this was weighing heavily on Casey's mind.

"You didn't miss much, don't worry about it," he said.

"It was hours."

"You spent most of the time asleep anyway," Kelly tried to lighten the mood.

Casey started groaning as he felt his stomach churning again.

"I think I'm starting to remember now," he said as he rolled over onto his side, "I remember the ride to Med, I felt seasick the whole way there."

Kelly quietly chuckled. Casey moaned and hugged the top pillow under his head. Then he opened his eyes and said with a reluctant whine, "My ice pack melted."

Kelly got to his feet. "I'll get you another one."

He stalked off to the kitchen, tossed the warm ice pack in the freezer, took out a stiff one, and headed back to the bunk room.

"Are you feeling any better?" he asked as he handed it to Casey.

"Still have a headache, but it doesn't feel like a pickax in my skull now," he answered as he laid his head flat against it and closed his eyes.

"You want me to go with you tomorrow?" Kelly asked.

"Go where?" Casey asked. He opened his eyes, "Home?"

Kelly shrugged.

"Thanks but _no_ thanks," Casey replied as he settled under his blanket again. "I'll be fine."

"If you're sure."

"I am. I appreciate everything you guys have done, I definitely wouldn't have wanted to be alone today, but I'll be fine."

Kelly nodded. "Okay." He swung his legs over onto the bunk and pulled the covers up. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

* * *

"You okay?" Kelly asked the next morning.

Casey looked around the room, everything was in clear focus, the brightness of the lights didn't make him want to puke. There was still a dull pain in the back of his head but he knew that would linger for a few days...or couple of weeks.

"Yeah," he said. "Good."

"Good," Kelly replied. "You know if you need anything, you can call me."

Casey gave a slight smile as he answered, "I know."

"If you're bored later, I can come over."

"Thanks."

* * *

Casey answered his phone, and without waiting for the person on the other end to speak, he said, "I'm not lying on the floor in a coma, Kelly, I'm fine."

"Will you open your door?"

"What?" Casey crossed over to the front door, opened it and saw Kelly standing on the stoop.

Casey disconnected the call and asked, "What're you doing here?"

Kelly held up a bag and told him, "You forgot your lunch. I _told_ you we'd save it."

"Oh for..." Casey grumbled something and said, "Thank you."

"You sure you're okay?" Severide asked.

"Yes."

Severide nodded. "Okay, just checking." He set the bag down on the coffee table and told him as he headed for the door, "See you next shift."

"Kelly."

He turned. "Yeah?"

"Thanks...for everything."

Kelly smiled. "No problem."


	11. Chapter 11

Bump

A/N: Shorter one this time. Hope you like it!

Casey had been tossing and turning in his bed for at least an hour trying to sleep, but so far hadn't had any luck. The only light in the room was from his digital clock, and a dim illumination shining through the window from the street lamp outside. He didn't know why he couldn't fall asleep, the night before on shift there hadn't been any calls coming in and he'd slept like a baby. Now, he was in his own bed, in his apartment, in the dark and silence, and for some reason he couldn't sleep.

He was exhausted, but no matter how long he lay there in the dark with his eyes closed, it didn't work, he was still awake. He stared at the clock, closed his eyes, waited, opened his eyes again, saw only a couple minutes had barely passed, tried again. One hour became two and a half and he was still awake and semi-alert. If he had any sense he'd probably just get up and watch TV until he finally conked out or the sun came up, whichever occurred first, as it was he stubbornly decided to stay in bed and wait for sleep to take him.

He'd just closed his eyes again, when he heard something.

Casey sat up, and listened. Nothing. Maybe he was just imagining things. He laid back down and pulled the covers back up.

There it was again.

What was it? Casey sat up, and held his breath, and listened. It sounded like somebody was at the front door of the apartment trying to get it to open. It was too late in the night for anyone from 51 to be paying him a visit, and the only alternatives that left weren't any that he liked the idea of. Casey reached for his phone on the nightstand to call 911, but he couldn't find it. Ah, to hell with that, they'd never get there in time anyway and he knew it. Kicking the covers back, Casey got out of bed and made his way over to the closet. Blindly feeling in the dark, he found his bag of golf clubs and acting on sheer memory of the feel of them, pulled out a wedge and gripped the handle tight and made his way from the bedroom to the living room.

Whoever was on the other side of the door was still trying to get it open and by now it sounded like they were about to break the door down. Casey quietly stalked over to right beside the door and got ready to beat the hell out of whoever came in.

Finally, and surprisingly, he heard the bolt slide and saw the door throw itself open, and a figure stepped in, and turned on the lights.

"Kelly!"

"What the hell are you doing?" Severide asked as he got a good look at his roommate.

Casey exhaled a breath he'd been holding onto, rested the club at his side and told him, "I thought you were an intruder."

"I lost my key," Kelly said as he tossed his jacket on the couch and made his way into the kitchen.

Now Casey _knew_ he was exhausted, he'd forgotten that Severide was staying at his place while he looked for a new apartment. With the club still in hand, he followed Kelly into the kitchen and saw the Squad lieutenant raiding the fridge and putting together a sandwich.

"I didn't know you went out," Casey said.

"You'd already gone to bed," Kelly answered.

"I never fell asleep," Casey replied.

"Yeah, you kind of look it," Severide remarked.

"Where've you been?"

"Out."

Casey rolled his aching eyes. "Duh."

"I went to a couple clubs," Kelly answered.

Casey turned his head back towards the door. "And you didn't bring anyone home?"

Kelly shot him a look. "You think that's all I think about?"

"You seem to forget I know you, Kelly."

"Apparently not as well as you thought," Severide remarked.

Casey grumbled something under his breath.

"Hey," Kelly said as he chewed on a piece of corned beef, "you need to get some sleep, you look awful."

Casey scowled at Severide, then responded by turning the golf club around and jabbing him in the gut with the handle, drawing a pained moan from Severide as he doubled over holding his stomach.

"Oof, I guess I had that coming," he groaned just barely above a whisper.

Casey felt a tired smile on his face as he turned around, walked off swinging the club in his hand, and called over his shoulder in a mocking singsong tone, "Good-night Severide."


	12. Chapter 12

Positive

Casey stood in Severide's quarters, feet planted shoulder width apart, his arms folded to his chest, and he felt a strain in his eyes indicating they had bugged out at the Squad lieutenant's revelation he'd just confided in Matt about.

Matt wasn't even sure how to respond to the news he'd just been told, after a pause all he could get out was an uncertain, "Whoa..."

Kelly didn't make eye contact with him. He just sat at his desk and grimly nodded his head and responded, "I know."

Casey turned around, then turned back and let out a breath he'd been holding on to.

"I don't know what to say."

Kelly pretended to look at the incident report he was working on. "It's alright, neither did I. I mean...I kind of thought I should get tested, but actually hearing the doctor's prognosis...I don't know, I kind of checked out when he told me."

"But...you're going to be alright, right?" Casey asked.

"Oh, yeah, yeah," Kelly opened a drawer in his desk and took out an orange pill bottle. "Doc says as long as I take these every day, I'll be fine." He paused before adding, "He said I was lucky I got tested before I started showing symptoms, by the time I did, there could be complications."

"Does Boden know about this?" Casey asked.

" _No_ , nobody knows," Kelly turned in his chair and looked at Matt. "I went to a place where nobody knows me, gave them a fake name...it's all off the books."

"Don't you think he should know?" Matt asked.

"Actually...after this I'm going to see about taking the rest of the shift off...and the next couple. Figure if I can stay home for the better part of two weeks it'd make things easier. Then come back once the regiment's over and I'm good again."

"Isn't that overdoing it a bit?" Casey asked.

"I'm not going to risk getting injured on a call and infecting someone else," Kelly told him.

There was a brief silence before Casey responded, "Well, that _is_ responsible, I guess." He hadn't planned to say it and he knew it definitely hadn't been the right thing to say, but he was at a loss for how to respond. It was obvious from the troubled look on Kelly's face that he hadn't expected telling Casey about what had happened to him to be as hard as it was. But now that he had gotten it off his chest, the man who had walked on shift that morning looking like he didn't have a care in the world, now looked like he had the weight of the whole planet on his shoulders.

Casey went over and lowered the blinds to the window that looked out to the hallway and closed them.

"What're you doing?" Kelly asked.

Casey walked back over to his desk and asked him, "If you're not going to tell anyone else what's going on, is there anything _I_ can do to help you?"

Kelly got out a small laugh, there wasn't anything humorous about it. He lowered his head closer to the desk and shook it. "There's nothing that anyone can do, I just have to wait this out and hope it works."

"Are you actually serious about holing yourself up in your apartment for 2 weeks?" Casey asked.

"What else am I gonna do?" he asked, the frustration loud and clear. "Obviously I'm not going to be bringing anyone home." He leered at Casey through the corner of his eye, "Go ahead, say it."

"Say what?"

"I know you've got something in mind, how this is my own fault for not being careful."

"Kelly, I wasn't going to say that," Casey said.

"Why not?" he snapped as he dropped his pen. "It's the truth, isn't it?"

"Kelly," Casey's voice was surprisingly low in response.

Kelly shut his eyes and groaned, then hit his forehead against the desk. "I really _am_ alone."

"I'm still here," Casey pointed out, feeling slight offended by that comment.

"Not that...I _really_ feel alone," Kelly admitted as he folded his arms on his desk and laid his head on them.

Casey looked down at this man who had clearly been trying so hard to hold everything together and finally failed. Matt leaned down and lightly kissed Severide on the top of his head.

"I will come over tomorrow after shift and see how you're doing," Casey told him. When there was no response he added, "I'll bring a pizza and some beer, we'll have a good time, you'll see."

Kelly picked his head up and Casey could see two thin glistening trails going down from his eyes to his cheeks, he got out a small laugh, this time there was some amusement to it.

"You won't be alone, I promise you," Casey told him.

Severide tried to pull himself together enough to smile in response to what Matt had said, he just barely managed a small one. "Thanks, Casey."

"Did you _really_ think I'd bust your balls when you're down like this?" Casey sounded offended. "You should know me better than that by now, Kelly Severide."

"I know, I know you wouldn't do that. I just...you start thinking...I _know_ I should've been more careful, most of the time I do think about that, this time I didn't...one drunken night and it can ruin everything...we see it all the time with car accidents but this...something different altogether."

Casey crouched down beside Severide and told him, "You'll be fine, Kelly."

Kelly's whole face seemed to light up with a glimmer of hope. "Thanks, Matt."

The two men hugged for a few seconds, then Casey pulled away and announced he had to get back and finish his own incident report. He had just about reached the door when he turned back and said, "Oh...one more thing, Kelly."

"What's that?" he turned towards the Truck lieutenant.

"Did you at least get her name?" Casey inquired.

"Out!" Kelly exclaimed as he picked up something to throw at him.

Casey smirked as he pulled the door shut behind him, and just about knocked down Otis and Cruz as he exited Kelly's office.

"What was that about, lieutenant?" Otis asked.

"What was what about?"

"Why'd you pull down the blinds in there?" Cruz asked. "What happened?"

"Oh..." Casey thought quickly, "Severide needed me to look at something."

The two firefighters glanced at each other and then back at their lieutenant and Otis asked, "What kind of something?"

"Something he definitely doesn't want Connie to see in passing," Casey responded, and that seemed to suffice.


	13. Chapter 13

Sssssssssssss

Dispatch had said there was a house fire, details seldom got more extensive than that. But actually pulling up to the scene, it was obvious this was not going to be an ordinary call. The house on fire in question was a two story triplex with smoke coming out the roof and the upstairs windows, and it didn't look like anybody had come out yet. The fire wasn't out of control yet, but everybody knew it was just a matter of minutes between that and the whole house being beyond salvaging.

"Are all the houses occupied?" Casey asked as they got ready to go in, dreading this primary search, wondering how many people they were looking at.

One of the neighbors who was watching the blaze from the next yard came over and explained the situation to the firemen, "It's just one family, they moved in a couple years ago and had a couple of the walls knocked out so the rooms interconnect."

"Hopefully that'll make it easier to find them," Kelly commented. "Any idea how many of them there are?"

"A married couple and two teenagers, that's all we've ever seen," the woman told them. "But they're some _weird_ people."

"Okay thanks, get back over there, we got it," Herrmann told her.

"I hope we do anyway," Casey commented. Even without the obstacle of going separately from house to house to house to check for people, somehow he just knew they were going to have their work cut out for them with this one.

* * *

"Fire department, call out!"

Severide entered the kitchen and could hear somebody nearby. He made his way towards the basement door and saw a middle aged woman who was dragging a man up from the stairs.

"Are you hurt?"

"I don't think so," the woman said with a hint of panic in her voice.

"I slipped," the man said as he pressed a hand against the doorframe to steady himself and stood up.

"Is anybody else in the house?" Kelly asked.

"Our kids...oh my God," the woman said, "they went upstairs to get their pets."

"How many kids are there?"

"Two, Lexi and Phillip."

Kelly could hear Cruz's voice coming through the second story floor, _"Fire department, call out!"_

"Somebody's up there, they'll get your kids out, are you alright?" Kelly asked.

"I'm fine," the man said as he regained his balance.

"Okay, you two go outside and the paramedics will check you over," Severide told them.

"Our kids-" the mother started to say.

"We'll get them out, you just go," he said.

Kelly heard the noise of footsteps stampeding down the stairs and he crossed through the dining room to the front hall just in time to see two teenagers running for the door carrying cages with lizards in them.

"Hey are you guys alright?"

"Yeah," the boy answered shakily, "but the rest of our pets are still upstairs."

"How many?" Kelly asked.

Up above, everybody's attention was drawn to the horrifying noise of Cruz screaming, then there was nothing.

"You two get out of here," Kelly told the kids, dreading what he was going to find as he started to climb up the stairs. "Cruz? Cruz, what happened? Cruz? Where are you? Cruz!"

"Severide?" Casey's voice came through on the radio.

"Casey, where the hell are you?"

"I'm not sure," Casey replied, "Somewhere between the northside and center house, they may have taken out the walls but this place is still a damn maze, there are doors that don't go anywhere, and the smoke is not helping. What happened to Cruz?"

"I don't know, that's what I'm going to find out."

"Copy that."

"Cruz! Call out!" Severide reached the top floor and saw a maze of doors that were shut and a screen of smoke starting to form down the main hall. Severide tried to listen for Joe's pass alarm, but he wasn't hearing it. "Cruz?"

* * *

Boden was watching the smoke from the street, not far from 61 where Sylvie was wrapping up checking out the family and determined none of them had suffered severe smoke inhalation or injuries but all the same recommended they go to the hospital just to make sure, though the kids were insistent they couldn't go anywhere until they found out if their pets were alright.

Severide's voice crackled over the radio, _"Chief, we've got a situation, is Brett out there?"_

Sylvie raised an eyebrow as she responded, "Right here, Severide, what's going on?"

 _"Cruz passed out, we need you in here."_

That concerned the paramedic. "Is he hurt?"

 _"I think he'll be fine, that's not the situation."_

"Ooh-kay," Sylvie replied, "What is it then?"

* * *

"Gah!" Tony exclaimed as the rat snake he was carrying wriggled in his grasp and tried to bite his mask.

"Just take it easy," Sylvie calmly instructed the firefighters as she headed to the door with a bull snake in tow, "Remember, they're more afraid of you than you are of them."

"Somehow I doubt that," Herrmann said as he turned his head away from the king snake that was showing its fangs to him.

Severide said nothing as he cautiously headed to the door with a boa constrictor in his hands.

Casey came down the stairs and kept a Halligan perfectly leveled in his hands as there was a baby python coiled around it.

Capp was next down the stairs, not saying anything but a very clear grimace on his face as he tried not to lose his grip on the rattler he'd gotten stuck with the job of hauling outside.

"Is that all of them, I hope?" Otis asked as they made it outside and handed the snakes over to the animal control people who'd been called in to assist.

Casey took off his mask and murmured into Kelly's ear, "It better be...if we get another call like this, I'm quitting, I mean it."

"Isn't there a law about how many snakes you can have in your home?" Mouch asked.

"There're definitely laws about how many _pets_ you can have," Otis said, "three dozen snakes, that _has_ to be some kind of violation."

"The woman next door _said_ they was weird," Herrmann commented.

"This goes beyond weird, Ripley's wouldn't touch this with a thirty foot pole," Mouch replied.

Casey went over to the ambulance where Cruz was steadily breathing through an oxygen mask and asked him, "You alright?"

Joe nodded reluctantly and lowered the mask, "Yeah, fine lieutenant...ooh boy, this is embarrassing."

"This is a nightmare," Otis corrected him as he approached them. "You're lucky, you were unconscious so you didn't have to handle any of them. Give me that," he took the mask from Cruz and took a hit off the oxygen himself.

"So what happens now?" Tony asked.

"I don't know," Casey shook his head, "but I have a feeling the animal rights people are gonna have a field day with this one."

"I just hope none of them laid any eggs," Mouch commented.

All the firefighters looked at each other for a moment, and collectively groaned as they started peeling off their turnout coats to shake them out.


	14. Chapter 14

Skin Deep

"Hey! Candidate! One hand on the beam, I don't care if you're carrying a damn _cow_. Men _die_ when they relax."

Kelly felt his head swimming. Those words sounded familiar, albeit much quieter. The voice sounded familiar too, but he couldn't quite place it. He opened his eyes, or tried to, and had to try a couple more times before they'd stay open long enough to actually see anything. When he could, and his eyes actually focused, he saw the overhead view of a room at Chicago Med, and he also saw Matt Casey standing over him.

"Casey?" he barely croaked out.

"I thought that'd get your attention," the blonde lieutenant responded, "Remember telling Mills that a couple years back?"

"Huh? Wha...what happened?"

"You don't remember?"

"I..."

"Kelly?"

Severide wracked his brain, and hardly even realizing what he was saying or where it came from, he heard himself respond automatically, "I didn't let go of the beam, the ladder fell."

"You let go of the beam _because_ the ladder fell," Casey replied.

Kelly closed his eyes and tried to remember. They'd been on a call, a house fire, he'd been up on the second floor doing a primary search, he'd found one of the kids half conscious on the floor. A boy, 9 or 10 years old. He remembered picking the boy up and heading for the window, he'd heard somebody...who?...he couldn't remember, but he knew somebody had announced the rest of the floor was clear. He'd told Boden that he was coming out with one of the kids, he'd started down the ladder, and...

The only thing he could remember was the sensation of falling, but he didn't remember seeing anything.

"The gas line exploded, half the block was damaged," Casey said. "We're lucky nobody died."

"The kid?"

"He's fine, Kelly."

Kelly shook his head as he tried to remember their exact positions, it seemed to him that when he hit the ground, he would've landed on top of the boy, and that much weight crushing him...

"Kelly, open your eyes."

He hadn't realized he'd closed them. He looked at Casey, who calmly assured him, "The boy's fine, just a few bruises, they treated him for smoke inhalation, he already went home yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Kelly repeated cluelessly.

"You've been unconscious for the better part of two days," Casey told him. "No _longterm_ serious damage but you did manage to scrape half your face off in the fall. You're lucky you didn't damage your eyes."

They couldn't prove it by Kelly, his whole body felt disconnected and he wasn't aware of feeling much of anything.

"You up to seeing the damage?" Casey asked him.

Kelly moaned softly as he thought about it, and slowly nodded. Casey picked up something from the bedside table and he saw it was a small mirror. He thought he was ready for what he was about to see, but when he saw his own reflection, he squeezed his eyes shut.

Vanity was not a word that Kelly ever thought applied to him, he'd been injured a lot of times on the job, some superficially, some very seriously, but very few were actually to the face. He saw the cleaned out cuts and gashes and all the places the top layer of skin was gone from, somewhere in his drug induced mind he actually flashed on the Phantom of the Opera. He felt his shoulders rising and dropping and heard the choked sound coming up from his chest to his throat.

"Hey, hey..."

Kelly felt a hand on the side of his head and felt Casey's lips pressing against his temple, he could actually feel Casey's presence hovering over him.

"It's okay, Kelly," he heard Casey tell him. "You're gonna be okay."

* * *

Over the next couple weeks Kelly dealt daily with the face that stared back at him in the mirror as he treated the cuts and watched the new skin growing in. As much as he resented the face looking back at him he actually seemed to get used to it and as the damage slowly undid itself he found it harder and harder to adjust to the changes in his appearance. There no doubt would be some scars, Brett had taken the initiative to give him a bottle of vitamin E oil to help with that once the skin finished healing.

When he'd been discharged from the hospital they gave him some low grade pain pills, but he hadn't been taken them. The injuries he'd sustained in the fall had hurt to be sure, but what was really about to drive him nuts was how much the new skin itched as it came in, and it took every ounce of self restraint he had not to dig into the flesh with his nails and tear all the skin off again.

He'd taken the next shift off and spent the better part of three days sitting around his apartment deciding what he was going to do. His injuries by now were superficial at best, there was little risk of anything getting infected, but for the first time in his life Severide felt a sense of self consciousness he'd never known before. Ironically he'd been able to hide his broken neck, he never had to worry about anybody looking at him and spotting the injury. But this was different, everybody on every call they responded to would see him and see his face, and he was well aware what that could easily do for people who were already in a panicked state of mind, especially little kids who were easily frightened by strangers even under normal conditions. But, tempting as it was to stay home and hide for the next week or so, he knew there was no real reason he couldn't make it to next shift, it was just a matter of biting the bullet and facing everyone.

Most of the guys were already on the apparatus floor when he showed up that morning, all of them acting like it was any other day, all of them trying not to stare, only a few of them actually brought up the subject and when they did, only told Severide that he was looking better than the last time they'd seen him. He exchanged a few word with them and then headed off to the locker room to change. On the way, he passed by Boden's office and saw through the window that somebody was speaking with the chief, and then headed for the door. A man stepped out and Kelly had no idea who it was because the man had his coat buttoned clear up to the top of his neck and had half his face concealed by a hat he was wearing. The man passed through the hall and for a split second, Kelly got a glimpse of the man, and he felt his eyes widen.

The side of the man's face he'd seen was covered in massive scar tissue from burns long since healed, that went from his face all the way around to the back of his neck, but under the deformed flesh Kelly _knew_ that man. It had been one of his instructors at the academy 18 years ago. Kelly stood there frozen for a minute as he tried to grasp this fact. Instantly his mind started to wander, what had happened, and when had it happened?

"Kelly."

Severide turned at the sound of Boden's voice, the battalion chief stood in the doorway of his office.

"I just talked to a sales rep, we're going to be getting in a new order of equipment in next week."

Slowly Kelly's mind came back to the here and now, and processed what Wallace had just told him.

"That's...that's great, Chief...I'll let the others know."

"Hey," Casey came up, completely oblivious to what had just happened. He reached over and touched Kelly's shoulder and said to him, "Glad to see you made it...are you alright?"

Kelly turned back towards the corridor where the former fireman had already left.

"Uh, yeah..." he said slowly, "better than I thought, actually."

Hell, what were a few scars?

* * *

Casey folded his arms behind his head and watched from where he lay on Kelly's bed as the Squad lieutenant examined his face in the mirror. It had been six weeks since Kelly's accident. Matt had stopped over earlier that night so they could watch a game on TV, he'd fallen asleep at some point, woke up and found Kelly in the bedroom, trying to get a better look at himself than he had from the light in the bathroom. Once the new skin had finished growing in, it had been obvious where the old met the new, but over the weeks the purple marks of the newer skin gradually lightened more and more until they had been almost impossible to see.

"Well? How's it look?" Matt asked.

Kelly pressed a hand against one cheek and smoothed the flesh out to examine it from all angles.

"They're gone," he said in minor astonishment, "the scars are finally gone."

"Guess Brett knew what she was talking about after all," Casey commented as he stood up and stepped behind Kelly to look in the mirror.

Kelly looked at Casey's reflection and told him, "I know it was a stupid thing to get upset about..."

"Anybody would be," Casey responded.

"I saw this guy coming out of Boden's office, back when we were at the academy...his whole face had been burnt, he had scars that covered his whole face and his neck...and _I'm_ freaking out because of a few cuts."

"Let's face it, Kelly, you have a wide history of doing stupid stuff," Casey looked at the other man's reflection, "but very few of them ever involved any facial damage. And given some of the stunts you've pulled, that's a lucky break."

"I know."

Casey paused and added, "So this time you weren't so lucky...but it still worked out...you can't even tell now that anything happened."

Kelly looked at his reflection, and thought back to that first shift back, and he corrected his friend. "I'm damn lucky."


	15. Chapter 15

Thy Sting

"AH!"

Kelly slammed the door of his Mustang and saw Casey slumped back against his truck clutching his hand. They'd just gotten off shift and gotten back to Casey's apartment.

"What happened?" he asked as he walked over.

Casey was staring down at his hand and didn't seem to pay any attention to what Kelly said.

"Casey?"

"A bee just stung me."

"What?" Kelly asked in disbelief. It wasn't that it was too early in the season, but he hadn't seen any bees around yet, and for that matter he couldn't recall the last time anybody he knew had been stung by one. "Are you sure?"

He got his answer when he saw the telltale stinger embedded in the flesh between Casey's middle and ring fingers, and the flesh surrounding it was already starting to swell up.

"Are you allergic?" Kelly's mind was already flashing to worst case scenario, Casey's throat closing up, not being able to breathe, the time it would take to rush him to Med.

Casey shook his head anxiously, "No."

"Are you sure?" Kelly didn't want to take any chances.

"I've been stung before...just...never like this."

"Okay, okay," Kelly tried to sound calm as his mind raced of what they needed to do. "Okay, let's go inside and get it taken care of."

Casey's feet seemed to be glued to the pavement, Kelly had to all but shove him to get him to move. He used his key to unlock the door and pushed Casey in. The blonde man was still staring almost hypnotically at his hand as he clutched it with his good one.

"Come on," Kelly told him. "To the bathroom."

Casey didn't know what it was Severide had planned but he followed the Squad lieutenant into the bathroom and saw Kelly scavenging through the medicine chest and found some cotton balls and Q-tips. Then he picked up the bottle of Listerine on the counter and unscrewed the top.

"What are you doing?" Casey asked.

"Trust me," Kelly said as he doused a cotton ball in the mouthwash, "this is gonna burn."

"Compared to _what_?" Casey sniped.

But he soon got his answer as Kelly dabbed the Listerine on the stung flesh, and the burn he was previously feeling was overshadowed by an all new sensation that felt like his skin was on fire.

"Ah!"

"Sorry," Kelly replied as he blew on it to cool it down, though that was very brief.

"Are you sure about this?" Casey asked.

"Yeah, you need three things to treat it, and you're _definitely_ going to hate the next one."

"What's that?" Casey almost dreaded to ask.

"Stay here," Kelly left the bathroom. Casey could hear him rummaging through the kitchen, and he returned with a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

"Oh hell no," Casey shook his head, "you can't be serious."

"It's going to work, it's also going to burn worse than _that_ , but it works, trust me," Kelly told him.

"You keep saying that," Casey said. "And I'm finding less reason to do that with everything you do."

Kelly held a Q-tip over the sink and doused the cotton head in Tabasco sauce.

"I'm _really_ sorry about this one, Casey, but you need it," Kelly warned him as he steadied Casey's hand with his own, "brace yourself."

He swabbed the swollen flesh with the Q-tip and almost immediately Casey felt like somebody stuck a lit match to his skin and his whole body jerked.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," Kelly repeated as he blew on Casey's hand.

"Let go of me," Casey told him as he tried to pull his hand out of Severide's grasp.

"Not yet," Kelly said. "There's one more step, and you need it."

Casey weakly laughed sarcastically as he asked him, "Oh yeah, what's that? Soak it in gasoline and set me on fire?"

"No, nothing like that," Kelly replied. He waited a couple minutes and asked, "Is it still as bad?"

Casey shook his head. "No, it's not burning much now."

"Okay," Kelly kept hold of Casey with one hand and with the other he sifted through the medicine cabinet again and took out a tube of Preparation H.

"Now what's _that_ for?" Casey asked.

"It'll take the swelling out," Kelly answered as he applied it to the swollen pink flesh between Casey's fingers, "Get a Band-Aid on it, when you take it off, the stinger will come out and stick to it instead."

Casey looked at the webbed flesh in question and said, "Hard place to fit a Band-Aid."

"I'll get it," Kelly told him.

There weren't any bandages small enough to actually fit between Casey's fingers without the adhesive coming undone, so Kelly cut one in half and got it to stick.

"Now, leave it alone and in an hour or so, stinger should be out and everything will be good as new," Kelly told him.

Casey stared down at his bandaged hand and said distantly, "Thanks." He looked up and asked Kelly, "How'd you know this would work?"

"Shay told me about it years ago."

"Where'd she find out about it?"

"Apparently she got stung a lot as a kid," Kelly answered.

Casey furrowed his eyebrows together in curiosity. "What was it, some kind of family remedy?"

"I don't know, but apparently it worked," he said.

"I guess we'll see about that," Casey replied.

* * *

"Ready?" Kelly asked a couple hours later. Casey had fallen asleep on the couch watching TV while they waited and Severide had decided not to disturb him. He'd woken up of his own accord just a few minutes earlier.

"I guess so...what if it's still in there?" Matt asked.

"Does it still hurt?"

Casey shook his head.

"Let's see then," Kelly grabbed the edge of the Band-Aid and slowly peeled it off.

The skin between Casey's fingers was back to its normal color and the swelling was gone. He looked at his hand in minor amazement and only as an afterthought looked and saw the dark stinger attached to the pad of the bandage.

Kelly heard the sigh of relief that escaped Casey before he realized it, though he didn't let on that he'd noticed.

"I told you it'd work," he smirked.

"Did Shay ever use it on you?" Casey inquired.

"Once," Kelly answered, and explained, "One time you were off shift because you were sick, I just stepped out of the shower and something's stabbing my foot. And once it was all over and done with, Shay laughed her ass off at my misery, more so for the actual treatment than the sting."

"You stepped on a bee in the locker room?" Casey asked.

"I stepped on a _wasp_."

"Oh shit."

"And they _don't_ lose their stingers, but it hurt like hell, and _so_ did the treatment. So I definitely understand how bad it was for you," Kelly told him.

"Well I'm glad it worked, for both of us," Casey said.

"Me too," Kelly replied.


	16. Chapter 16

Friend in Need

Casey yawned as he leaned back against the couch cushions. It was getting late and he was just about ready to call it a night. He reached over and found the remote and shut the TV off, got up, stretched and heard several things throughout his upper body creaking and popping, and was about to head to the bedroom when his phone rang.

As a general rule, nobody called him at this time of night, and he didn't recognize the number. It'd be his luck it was some telemarketer calling from Pakistan.

"Hello?" he answered, ready to hang up as soon as the other person started their sales pitch.

But it wasn't a telemarketer, or any kind of robo-call. Casey listened to the person on the other end of the line and his tired eyes suddenly grew wider as he took in what he was being told.

"Okay," he said a bit hesitantly, "okay, I'll be right down."

Great, just what he didn't need. Have to go down to a bar and pick up one of his own who had apparently drunk themselves way past their limit. Why couldn't they stick to Molly's and then Herrmann and Otis could call them a cab? Casey got his jacket and his keys and headed out to his truck and took off for the address the bartender had given him over the phone.

It wasn't a place he'd been to before, the neighborhood itself wasn't exactly one he was familiar with, he wondered what would possess anybody from 51 to come down here when they could've stayed at their own friendly neighborhood firefighter bar. He knew Severide had a tendency to barhop, looking for a change of scenery or just a change of the women available, but...

"Are you Matt Casey?" a man just inside the door asked him.

"Yeah," he answered cautiously, his eyes roaming around to assess the situation. The place was largely empty, if it already had been or if something happened to cause that, he wasn't sure.

"Over there," the man pointed to the bar.

Matt looked and felt his eyes double in size. "Brett?"

"Heeeey, Casey," Sylvie slurred from where she sat on the bar stool, barely able to keep her eyes open, a bloody cut open on her forehead that definitely had not been there during last shift.

"What happened?" Casey asked as he headed over to the bar.

"Some of the customers got into it with each other earlier, your friend here took it upon herself to get in the middle of it to try and break things up," the bouncer told him.

"What?" Casey asked, that didn't sound like the Sylvie Brett that he knew.

Sylvie's eyes were all but closed and she was weakly laughing, just about to fall off the stool she apparently thought something was so funny as she told him, "You should've seen it, Casey, they all just ran like a bunch of chickens..." Sylvie bobbed her head and started clucking and then for added measure started flapping her wings.

Casey turned to the bartender and asked, "How much did she have to drink?"

"Enough," he answered as he slammed her tab on the countertop.

Casey looked at the bill and did a double take. "She drank that much?"

"No, she busted a $50 bottle of vodka over somebody's head during the fight," the bartender answered.

Casey rolled his eyes and took some cash out of his wallet and paid what she owed. "The cops been here?"

"Everybody took off shortly after that, no point in calling them," he answered.

Casey looked back at the blonde woman whose hair had half fallen out of her braid, and was dressed in a black sweater and blue jeans. If he had to guess, Brett had not come here looking to get picked up. "Can I take her home?"

"Get her out of here," the bartender told him. "I don't want to see her again."

Sylvie's response was to blow a razzberry at him.

"Sorry about the trouble," Casey said as he went over to Sylvie. "Where's your coat, Brett?"

"Hmmmm, I don't know," she slurred, looking almost asleep, "I don't even know where I am."

Casey found it draped over a chair and tried to get her arms in the sleeves. "Come on, Brett, wake up, we're gonna get you to the hospital and get you looked at."

"I don't need a hospital," Sylvie said as she slunk back against the counter, "I'm fine."

"We'll see about that," Casey said as he got her coat zipped and pulled her to her feet.

The cold night air of the city did little to make Brett anymore alert as Casey walked her over to his pickup and assisted her into the passenger seat. Then he went around to the driver's side, started the engine and got them out of there.

"What were you doing at that bar, Brett?" he asked as he drove along through the steady stream of traffic.

Sylvie hummed in her throat and leaned against the door, "Getting drunk."

"I can see that," he replied and glanced over at her, "why?"

Instead the blonde paramedic merely curled into a ball and was about asleep.

"Wake up!"

"Hmm, stop yelling, I'm awake," Sylvie said, though it took her eyes a few seconds to open.

"Since when do you get into bar fights?" Casey asked.

She laughed weakly and coyly and very drunkenly replied, "I-yam full of alllll kin's of surprises, Matt Casey."

"I'm finding that out," Matt said. He looked over at her again and asked, "Do Cruz and Otis know where you are?"

"Who?" she asked as her eyes closed again.

"Oh brother."

He saw her nodding off again and reached over and grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked it to get her attention, she sprang up in her seat with a pronounced 'OW!'

"What'd you do that for?" she asked.

"You need to stay awake until we get to the doctor, you might have a concussion," Casey told her.

"I don' need a doctor, I'm fine," she insisted.

"We're going to let the doctor determine that," Casey said.

Sylvie shook her head, "I don't need a doctor, I'm EMT certified."

"So am I," Casey pointed out, "And _I_ say we're going to the hospital."

"Oh Casey, you worry about too much," Sylvie murmured as she turned on her side and leaned her head against his shoulder.

Casey nudged her back so he didn't have any distractions while he drove.

"Do you usually drink this much, Brett?"

"Sometimes," she answered, her eyes closed. "Try to forget...all the people we can't save...just wanna forget...jus' push it all away..."

Casey was nothing if not sympathetic to that, but he knew if Brett made a habit out of this, she'd be the next one Ambo couldn't save.

"Sylvie..."

He looked over again and saw her head was tilted back and she was snoring. Casey latched his hand against the horn and the deafening blare had the paramedic shooting up in her seat again, awake for the moment and screaming as she covered her ears.

"Wha is it, wha happened? Who did that?"

"Sylvie, _stay awake_."

"Why?"

"How'd you hurt your head?"

"I dunno," she tried curling into a ball again.

"Think."

"Mmmm," she tiredly grumbled. "I hit somebody's fist with it."

He about laughed. Somehow that almost sounded right.

"Why?"

"You know what a hassle calls are to bar brawls," Sylvie tiredly said, "thought if I broke it up early, save Third Watch the trouble."

"By smashing a vodka bottle over somebody's head?" Casey asked.

"He insulted me," Sylvie weakly answered as she closed her eyes.

"Brett!"

"I'm awake I'm awake I'm awake," she insisted though her eyes were still shut.

"Keep your eyes open, we'll be at the hospital soon."

"Mmm, and have to sit in the waiting room for 3 hours then," Sylvie replied cynically, "goodnight."

"Brett!"

* * *

Casey pulled up to the curb outside the apartment Sylvie shared with Cruz and Otis. He'd called them while Sylvie was in with the doctor and gave them a heads up of what was going on and told them he'd be bringing her home eventually, so they'd know to be waiting. He saw the outside lights on and figured they were on their way.

"Brett... _Brett_ , wake up."

"Hmm," Sylvie blinked her eyes a couple times before sitting up. She'd gotten her forehead stitched up and was beyond ready to call it a night. "Wha is it?"

"We're here," Casey said as he reached for his door handle.

"Great...where's here?" she closed her eyes again.

Casey got out and saw two figures coming down the stoop.

"What happened?" Otis asked.

"Is she okay?" Cruz added.

"Doc put in a couple stitches, said she has a minor concussion," Casey explained. "She's also had enough to drink to kill a horse, so she's going to have one hell of a headache in the morning."

"Thanks for the warning," Otis said.

"So were there any special instructions?" Cruz wanted to know.

"Nah, just take her in and prop her up for the night," Casey told them.

"Thanks, lieutenant," Joe said as they went to get Sylvie out of the truck.

Brian opened the door and they saw the blonde paramedic who looked dead to the world.

"Hey Brett, how're you feeling?"

Sylvie reluctantly opened her eyes and managed a small inebriated smile. "Hey guys...wha're you doing here?"

"Just take it easy, Brett, we're gonna get you inside so you can go to bed," Cruz told her as they got on either side of her and each took an arm to keep her upright.

"Aww, thanks guys," she replied as her whole body slumped against their hold on her, and they had to pull her to her feet again.

"Good luck!" Casey called to the men as they got Sylvie up the stairs, not envying the mess they'd likely have come tomorrow morning.


	17. Chapter 17

Dead of Night II

"Kelly...Kelly..."

Severide heard the whispered voice, and he knew what it meant, but he wanted to ignore it. But he knew he couldn't. He forced his eyes open and found himself laying on Casey's bunk, in effect laying on Casey more or less, his head pressed against the Truck lieutenant's shoulder. It was still dark in the room, it wasn't morning yet, at least he wouldn't bet on it.

"What time is it?" he tiredly croaked out.

"4:30," Casey answered in a hushed voice.

Kelly groaned under his breath and pressed his head back against Casey's shoulder. He didn't want to get up. He knew he had to, but he didn't want to.

"Kelly..."

"One more minute..." Kelly said as he wrapped his arms under Casey's back and held to him tightly, "one more minute..."

Casey sighed and watched the Squad lieutenant as he closed his eyes and settled back down. He actually seemed to fall asleep again instantly. He felt Kelly's breath against his shirt, his breathing was steady.

As many times as they'd done this in the middle of the night on shift when the calls were few and far between, something there was never enough of at 51, Casey knew they needed to get back to their own quarters before a call could come in; even though there wasn't anything that out of the ordinary going on with them, he knew there was simply no way to explain what they were doing if anybody else would find out. Even now, even this time when Kelly was still reeling from Anna's death, it was just easier if neither of them had to explain it to anyone.

Kelly had asked for one more minute. Casey gave him five. He actually seemed to be in a dead sleep for that short amount of time.

Severide finally opened his eyes when he felt Casey's hand on the back of his head. For a brief second he tightened his grip on Casey, still not wanting to let go. He inhaled and took in the familiar and right now comforting scents: Casey's deodorant, the lingering smell of soap from the fifth shower he'd taken that day after the last call, the cotton of his shirt that no matter how many times it went in the washer, never fully lost the smell of smoke from the fires they were in. Right now he needed something familiar, something that took him back to the routine order of the job, something...something that didn't smell like hospitals and disinfectant and death and dying.

He really had loved Anna, he'd hoped they would have a future together. It was a known fact he did not deal with his grief well. Right now he needed the close physical presence of another human being or he thought he'd lose his mind, and as much as he'd loved Anna, he didn't trust himself to look for that contact in another woman. Instead he sought it of his best friend, somebody he could rely on, both personally and in the fact that unlike Anna, Casey was healthy, and strong, and save the event of a call gone wrong, would _always_ be there for him, somebody who wouldn't leave him.

"Kelly."

He sighed. "I know...I know..." Reluctantly he let go of Casey's shirt and sat up.

Now that Kelly's weight was off of him, Casey also sat up and tried to get the circulation going through his arm again.

"Shift changes in less than four hours, you want to come over?" Casey asked quietly so they wouldn't wake up anybody out in the bunk room.

Kelly shook his head, but didn't trust himself to give a verbal answer.

"If you change your mind, you're welcome to come," Casey told him.

Kelly slowly nodded his head in response, just staring straight ahead into the darkness.

"I'm sorry, Kelly," Casey told him. "I'm sorry about Anna."

Kelly bent his head down towards his chest. Casey looked at him for a minute, then wordlessly leaned over and hugged him. Kelly desperately latched onto him in response.

"Love you," Casey whispered.

Those two simple words simultaneously made Kelly's eyes burn with tears just beginning to form, and also made him smile for the first time in days.

"Love you too," he replied, feeling his throat tightening.

Reluctantly, Kelly pulled away and got up from the bunk. Just before he reached the door he turned back and told Casey, "Thank you."

Casey managed a small smile as he replied nonchalantly, "No problem."

He knew this wasn't the last time this was going to happen, he didn't know if there ever _would_ be a last time. What he knew was the next time it _did_ happen, he would be there for Kelly again, and he knew the next time _he_ was the one going through a tragic loss, that Severide would be there for him. It was a large part of how and why they were still friends after everything they'd been through over the years.

Kelly left the quarters and Casey laid back down on his bunk, pulled up the blanket and decided to try and get a little more sleep in before the bells went off again. As he turned on his side and settled his head against the pillow, he felt his own eyes starting to sting with fresh tears at everything that Severide had gone through in the past few days. He felt a pulsing in his chest but the cries that rose to the surface were small and too quiet to be heard by anyone outside of his room.


	18. Chapter 18

Dawn of the Brain Dead

Herrmann was dragging his feet and muttering something to himself as he came on the apparatus floor that morning. Everybody noticed but knowing him and his tendency to break into rants unimaginable, everybody was too scared to ask. Almost...

"Hey Herrmann, what's up?" Otis asked.

"Da next time Lee Henry has his friends over for the night, I'm sending him over to your place," was the first thing that came out of Christopher's mouth, and suddenly he had the attention of everybody else on the floor.

Otis looked at the others with a slightly wide eyed expression of confusion. "Why? What happened?"

"Jeez, six 13 year olds from hell taking up my living room so they can watch movies on the big TV all night. And Cindy has me traipsing back and forth every 15 minutes to make sure they're not watching porn. I should've been so lucky. He and his little friends were binge watching some zombie movie marathon."

"Ooh, which ones?" Otis asked.

"How the hell do I know?" Herrmann asked. "So every time I'm passing by the living room I am seeing _the_ most disgusting crap imaginable, people eating people, people eating brains, people stabbing people in the eyeball, people _eating_ eyeballs, and then I'm having nightmares all night long about this crap. I was never so glad to wake up and come to work. _Who_ is entertained by this garbage?"

Several hands went up.

"Ah shut up, you're all sick," Herrmann shook his head in disgust. "That was a rhetorical question." He tiredly rubbed one eye and grumbled, "Dreamt the whole House was being overrun with a zombie infestation, I'm already beat."

"This should be an interesting shift then," Casey quietly murmured to Severide.

What nobody noticed at the time was that the gears were already starting to turn in Otis's head.

* * *

"You seeing what I'm seeing?" Kelly asked a couple hours later.

"He's doing it again," Casey commented as everybody, unbeknownst to Otis, watched him as he stood beside Truck 81 and had an intense look in his eyes. He'd been standing there for 15 minutes and the only thing he'd moved had been his head as he craned it one way and the other, gazing intently at the rig.

"Don't tell me he's going for that astronaut thing again," Cruz said.

That drew a couple of snickers from the others in the background.

"You gonna ask?" Kelly asked Casey.

"You ask."

"He's on your company."

"You brought it up."

"Cruz, you ask," Kelly said, "you guys are roommates."

"No way," Joe shook his head. "I'm not touching that one with a 10 foot pole."

Mouch looked at the younger firefighters and grumbled, "You guys are unbelievable." He turned towards Brian and loudly cleared his throat and said, "Hey, Otis!"

That drew Brian out of his thoughts and he turned towards the others, who were all still watching him like he was the 8th wonder of the world. Mouch asked point blank in a slightly lower tone, "What're you doing?"

At first he didn't say anything. Then, distantly, he asked them, "You guys ever think what all a firehouse contains that could be used in the event of a zombie apocalypse?"

"Nope," everybody answered as they got up from their tables and started to scatter.

"No, really, think about it," Otis said as he headed over to the ones that hadn't gotten out of there as fast. "Most of the tools we use on the job would be _perfect_ to combat the undead. Of course, it would depend if they were the "Night of the Living Dead" zombies or the "Return of the Living Dead" zombies."

"Hell, I'll ask," Casey grumbled under his breath to Kelly, then asked louder, "What difference would it make, Otis?"

"Well the original "Night" zombies could be killed by a blow to the head, destroy the brain and the zombie dies. But the "Return" zombies, _nothing_ kills them, destroying the brain doesn't do anything, neither would cutting their head off, all you could do was cut them into pieces and burn them, unfortunately then the smoke from the fire goes into the clouds, comes down in the rain and it reanimates the rest of the dead people."

"I'm sorry I asked," Casey told Severide.

" _I'm_ sorry you asked," Kelly replied.

"On one hand, if it was the "Night" zombies, pretty much everything in the rig is fair game, all the irons, if a tire iron could finish one off, the Halligans would serve a dual purpose, first bash the brains in, then drag them outside to burn them," Otis explained. "If it was the "Return" zombies, you'd pretty much be screwed but you could at least try and contain the damage, the saws would come in _very_ handy then."

"Where's a house fire when you need one?" Cruz murmured to the others.

"And either way, if you had a whole hoard of zombies outside those doors, the rigs would offer a fair amount of protection and probably be able to mow down a good number of them in the event of an escape."

Kelly leaned over and murmured to Casey, "Cover me, I'm gonna call in a false alarm."

Casey choked on a laugh and elbowed Severide in response.

* * *

The next shift was a slow one, matching with the weather which had been rain all day and occasional thunder in the distance. With few calls coming in, some members of 51 took advantage of the lull to catch up on some sleep before the bells went off again.

Casey woke up in his quarters only because he'd turned over in his sleep and there was a prickling feeling all up and down his arm from the circulation being cut off. He got up from his bunk and moved around the room as he tried to get the blood flowing again, and looking out the window of his quarters, he saw something that quickly got his attention. Moving quickly and quietly, he left the room and crossed over to Severide's quarters and went over to the bed and shook the Squad lieutenant.

"Hm-hu-wha-what is it?" he asked groggily.

"Get up, you have to see this," Casey said as he grabbed Kelly by the arm and jerked him up from the bunk.

"Casey, what the hell are you-" Kelly grumbled as they came to a stop at the window, he looked out at what Casey was seeing and quickly became quiet.

"What the hell?" Kelly asked.

"Think this is gonna be interesting," Casey told him. "Come on."

The two lieutenants left the room and made their way out to the bunk room and quietly went to work waking up the other firefighters so they didn't miss what was coming.

Otis was the only one still asleep in his bunk, and oblivious to anything that was going on. Somebody tapping him on the shoulder roused him out of his sleep, he opened his eyes and looked up.

The windows lit up with a flash of lightning as a clap of thunder sounded overheard, coinciding all too perfectly with the 6 foot tall zombie hovering over him, the rotting flesh of his face a corpse's ashen gray, the lips decayed away revealing the sharp teeth.

It lunged at him with a rabid growl, Otis shot up on the bunk with a yelp of terror and in one move punched the zombie in the face. He reeled back and fell flat on the floor, everybody gathered around to see what happened next. Otis hopped clear over the bunk and looked around at everyone wide eyed and disoriented.

The zombie on the floor moaning in pain raised one hand up to its head and grabbed the underside of the chin and peeled its face back and clear over its head, revealing Harold Capp underneath, already sporting the beginning of a fist sized bruise on his face. Everybody standing around the room started laughing, except Brian, who looked around at everyone, and in an annoyed tone demanded to know, "What the hell is going on?"

"Just another typical day at 51," Kelly murmured to Casey, who merely nodded in agreement since he was laughing too hard to talk.


	19. Chapter 19

Critter Jitters

It had been a slow shift, no calls had come in in over two hours, and everybody was currently lazing around the common room waiting for something interesting to happen.

"Hey..." Otis broke the silence of monotony and cocked his head as he looked up the wall, "you hear that?"

Everybody turned their heads to see what he was talking about, but nobody saw or heard anything, and went back to what they were doing.

"I'm telling you," Otis said as he looked at the wall, "I hear something in there."

"It's the pipes, Otis," Herrmann said dismissively.

Otis shook his head. "I don't think so."

But everybody else had already decided that he didn't know what he was talking about, and they went back to watching TV.

An hour later, the firehouse came alive with the echoed sounds of somebody screaming, and it didn't take long to figure out that that somebody was Cruz, especially as he came running their way, and everybody wanted to know what was going on.

"I saw it! In the laundry room!"

"What?"

"A rat!" Cruz said, "a three foot long New York sewer rat!"

The room was full of groans and people going 'come on!', if anything they were even more convinced that Cruz was out of his mind than they had been about Otis.

"I am telling you, I saw it, it is huge, it is not normal!" Cruz insisted.

The people around him were cynically going, 'Yeah yeah' when everybody's attention was drawn to an unfamiliar sound that had them all screaming and turning every which way, collectively they managed to catch the movement of _something_ scurrying along the floor, and while nobody got a good look at it, the movements were too big to be any normal sized mouse, _or_ even a normal sized rat. Everybody took off running after the speeding piece of gray fur in an attempt to catch it and find out what it was.

Casey had just finished an incident report and was leaving his quarters when he heard the stampede, but didn't get out of the way in time to avoid being knocked on the floor by the half dozen firemen rushing past him.

"Sorry, lieutenant!" somebody called back.

Casey was sprawled on the floor in a daze for a moment, then he shook his head and saw Kelly standing over him.

"What happened?"

"They're chasing a rat," he answered.

"What?"

"Cruz think there's some killer rat in the firehouse and they're trying to catch it," Kelly explained as he helped Casey up.

Casey groaned, "This is _not_ going to end well."

"Let's just hope they don't decide to get the irons for it," Kelly said.

"Either way they're going to tear the whole firehouse apart before they find it," Casey replied.

" _If_ they find it," Kelly added.

"And is there a reason calling an exterminator doesn't come to mind?" Matt wanted to know.

"That would just make too much sense," Kelly replied with a chuckle. "So, you want to watch this train wreck?"

"I think we're better off keeping our distance," Casey replied.

Severide thought about it for a minute and concluded, "But we can still watch."

"Yeah, let's go."

* * *

Otis slammed the door, "I got it! I got it! It's in the bathroom!"

"Great, now who's going in after it?" Herrmann asked.

"Not me," Cruz said as he stepped away, "I already saw that thing, three feet long, razor teeth, red eyes."

Kidd sighed disgustedly and shook her head. "I don't believe this..." raising her voice she ordered, "Somebody get me a hammer."

"What're you going to do?" Otis asked.

Stella gestured to the door and answered, "Ever see 'National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation'? I'm going to go in there and smack it with a hammer."

That earned her several sickened looks from the men standing around her.

"You want a turnout coat for that?" Otis asked.

"No," Stella said as she grabbed the claw hammer and tested its weight, "I'll be right back."

Everybody stood back as she entered the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

"That is _not_ going to work," Cruz said, "that rat is too big for a hammer to work."

Everybody stood around, and waited, and there was only silence from the restroom. A couple minutes later the door opened and Stella came back out and marched over to Cruz.

"You need to learn the difference in animals," she told him, and addressing everybody explained, "That's not a rat, it's a possum!"

" _What_?" Jaws dropped, eyes bulged, everybody was in more disbelief at this revelation than Cruz's idea of a 3 foot sewer rat.

"You killed a possum with a hammer?" Otis asked.

"No," she answered, "you're gonna need a bigger hammer to do that."

Cruz's eyes lit up and he replied, "Well _that's_ something I can arrange."

"No no no," Stella shook her head, "forget it, that Slammigan ain't gonna cut it. You're gonna have to call animal control for that thing."

"How the hell did a possum get in the firehouse?" Herrmann wanted to know.

"I told you that open door policy went too far," Otis commented.

"Great, so now we have to keep everybody out of the bathroom until a dog catcher can haul off a possum," Casey grumbled to Severide.

"Hey, at least they trapped it before something got demolished," Kelly pointed out. "Eight crazed firemen storming through the place, we could be looking at a lot of damage easily." As Kidd walked by he asked her, "Oh by the way, Stella...what happened to the hammer?"

Sheepishly, the curly haired woman turned around and with an uncertain look on her face, reluctantly answered, "It stole it."

The two lieutenants turned and looked at each other with wide eyed expressions at that.

"Maybe it's a New York sewer possum," Severide guessed.

"Could be," Casey replied.


	20. Chapter 20

Family Protection

"Who did this?" Kelly demanded to know.

"I don't know, okay?" Shay replied as she folded an ice pack in a dish towel and pressed it against the side of her face, "I didn't stop to get their names."

"What did they look like?" Kelly felt his blood reaching the boiling point and he was ready to go out and kill someone.

"I don't know, like a million other narrow minded assholes in this city with a beat up convertible," Shay said.

"Did anybody see what happened?"

"No, they waited until everybody else left the parking lot," she answered, flinching as the cold towel made contact with the growing bruise on her cheek.

"What happened to the woman you were with?" Severide asked her.

"She got away," Leslie told him as she ran her free hand under her nose.

"Shay, you've got to call the cops."

"No way," she insisted, "it's bad enough going through this with the lowlives of the city, I don't need a second dose of it from some clueless son of a bitch with a badge. Look, Kelly, this really isn't the first time that this has happened...and as long as there _are_ narrow minded assholes in this world, it very likely won't be the last time either. It's just not worth it to report it."

"I think you need to go to the hospital and get checked out," Kelly told her.

His roommate shook her head definitively, "I'm fine, Kelly, I'm...I'll _be_ fine, just a little banged up."

He looked at her unconvincingly. "Are you sure?"

Leslie pursed her lips together and just nodded.

Kelly felt some of the murderous rage starting to leave his body as it was steadily replaced by sheer worry for his best friend and frustration at his inability to help her. "Why didn't you call me?"

Shay shook her head, forcing her voice to stay strong as she answered, "I just wanted to get home."

Kelly felt frozen. He could see her struggling to hold herself together and looking like she was going to fall apart at any second, and all he wanted to do was hug her and promise her everything would be alright but he was terrified to even touch her after what she'd just been through.

"I just want to go to bed and forget about what happened," Shay told him as she put the ice pack down and headed for the stairs. Kelly watched her walk away, and didn't fail to notice how though Leslie tried to stand tall and firm, her legs were shaking with every step she took.

"Leslie-"

Shay reached the first step and lost her balance, Kelly grabbed her just as she fell back.

"I think you better park yourself on the couch for now," Severide told her as he led her over to the sofa, "come on."

A small whimper of defeat escaped the blonde paramedic, realizing that she couldn't even convince herself she was alright, let alone her roommate. Kelly sat down first and gently pulled her by the arm to sit down next to him, Shay did, pressing her legs tightly together and staring down at them as she wrung her hands. Another small whimper worked its way loose, then gave way to her entire upper body wracking as small sobs of terror bubbled up from her chest. Kelly draped a protective arm around her and pulled her against him, and how quickly she leaned into the hug and pressed her head into the crook of his neck told him just how helpless she felt right now. He raised his head enough to lean over and lightly kiss her on the top of her head.

"I'm sorry, Shay," he said quietly as he subconsciously tightened his hold on her.

* * *

Leslie woke up feeling like she had a hangover, but she didn't remember drinking that much the night before. She also woke up facing the back of the couch and the pillow under her head was cold. Groggily she rolled over onto her back and found a heavy blanket draped over her, explaining why her movements were slowed, she reached a hand up and felt her hair was damp, but she didn't remember taking a shower last night either.

"I can tell Boden you're sick and need to sit this shift out," Kelly said as he walked into the living room carrying a mug of coffee.

Shay reached a hand up to take the coffee, then realized something else. She flipped the blanket down and saw the shirt she had on last night was gone and instead she was wearing one of Kelly's sports jerseys which was at least a good three sizes too large on her.

"Kelly, what the hell happened?" she weakly demanded to know.

"You had a nosebleed last night, and most of your clothes were dirty...incidentally when _was_ the last time you did your laundry?"

"Shut up," she grumbled as she sat up and took the mug from him.

Kelly sat down beside her and asked, "So, you feeling any better today?"

"I don't know, what day is it?" she absently asked as she sipped the coffee.

"I think you better stay home and take it easy, Shay," he told her.

Leslie shook her head, "No, I just want to get to work and put what happened last night behind me."

"How're you going to explain the bruises?" Kelly asked.

"What?" she turned to him.

"Go look in the mirror, everybody's going to have questions about that," Kelly said.

Leslie set her coffee down, stood up, went over to the mirror on the wall, and recoiled at the black and blue marks on her cheek and just over her eyebrow.

"Shit."

Kelly walked up behind her and his reflection stared at hers. "Tell me what I can do to help."

Shay looked at his reflection and sighed and shook her head, "There's nothing you can do. How much time till we have to be at work?"

"About an hour."

Leslie turned her face one way and the other and said, "Should be enough time to cover this up."

* * *

It was late at night and no calls had come in for a couple hours, everybody was in the bunk room trying to get some rest before the bells went off again. Kelly quietly made his way past the rows of bunks until he came to Leslie's.

"Get back in your own room you pervert," she quietly grumbled as she turned over.

"How'd you know it was me?" he asked.

"As long as we've lived together, I _know_ your footsteps," Shay answered as she turned her back to him.

"How're you doing?" Kelly asked as he sat on the edge of her bunk.

She tiredly lifted her head up and groaned, "You don't ever give up, do you?"

"Nope," he answered.

Leslie rolled onto her back again to look at him and answered, "I'm fine, Kelly. I appreciate you asking, but you don't need to keep checking on me."

"Okay," Kelly stood up, leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, "see you in the morning."

Shay tiredly laughed and commented, "I wish."

* * *

Shift changed at 8 and everybody went their own ways, and on the surface everything appeared normal. That night however, Kelly went to Leslie's door and through it he could hear the soft muffled sound of her crying. He lightly rapped on the door and called out, "Shay, can I come in?"

"No, go away," the muffled voice responded.

They'd always respected each other's privacy, that was a condition of their being friends and roommates, but right now every nerve in Kelly's body told him that was the last thing he should do. Instead he opened the door and lightly asked, "I couldn't hear you, did you say come in?"

Shay sat on her bed leaning against the backboard, dressed in a set of sweats specifically reserved for the dateless nights at home when she just wanted to be comfortable.

"Get out, Kelly," she said over her tears, no conviction in the words whatsoever.

"Make me," he replied in an empty threat, "you want some company?"

Leslie looked down at the bed spread and shook her head.

"Can I stay anyway?"

His persistence and the completely oblivious way he said it drew a small laugh out of her as she cried. Kelly took that as a yes and parked himself on the other side of the bed.

"You having second thoughts about reporting those bastards?" he asked.

"No," she was definite as she shook her head. She sniffed and said, "I just don't get it, Kelly. What is wrong with people?"

"I don't know," he quietly responded. He reached over and smoothed her bangs back and watched her, wishing like hell there was something he could do to help. After a few minutes she started to calm down and Kelly asked her, "You want to watch TV?"

She looked down and shook her head.

He thought for a minute. "You want to make some tea and pour a whole bottle of brandy in it?"

That got a small chuckle out of the blonde paramedic, with a brief smile on her face she shook her head again.

"You want to just stay here and be miserable?" Kelly asked.

That got a small nod out of her.

"Well, misery loves company," Kelly said as he folded his arms under his head and stared up at the ceiling. "So this is what it's like to spend the night in your room, I imagined something different."

A choked laugh got loose and Leslie reached over and elbowed him, "Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Stop trying to make me laugh."

"Who's trying?" Kelly asked innocently.

Shay pulled her elbow back and instead reached over and punched him to shut him up, Kelly just laughed and moved back to get out of her reach.

* * *

Kelly woke up and it was morning and he had his face buried in a pillow, and as he looked up he realized he wasn't in his room.

"What the-"

"That's right, Kelly Severide." Kelly turned over and saw Shay laying on the other side with her back to him, she rolled over and looked at him with a sly smirk on her face and said, "You have finally fulfilled that long anticipated fantasy of sleeping with your lesbian roommate. And if you ever breathe a word of this to anybody at 51 or anywhere else in the planet, I will _kill_ you, I'm a paramedic, I know how to do it."

Kelly laughed in response and sat up.

"Hey," Leslie said as she pushed up on her elbows, "thanks for not listening to me."

"Well thanks for not kicking me out," he replied. "You okay?"

She looked at him, her lips pursed together in contemplation, and finally nodded, "Yeah, I think so."

* * *

2 weeks later-

Molly's was busier than it normally was and Kelly looked around for Leslie and didn't see her. Finally he asked Herrmann, "Hey, where's Shay?"

"Still in the bathroom, how long does it take women to powder their nose?"

"I don't think anybody still does that, Herrmann."

Christopher hawed under his breath and said, "You clearly don't know Cindy."

The bar erupted in a loud assortment of responses to the game playing on TV, Kelly turned his head and noticed most of the crowd tonight was made up of people he hadn't seen there before.

"Where're they all coming from?" Kelly asked.

"Beats me, but wherever they do, I hope they keep coming, this is the best we've done all month," Herrmann told him.

Kelly turned on his bar stool and finally saw Leslie coming back from the ladies' room. As the barflies erupted in another cheer for the game on TV, Kelly saw Leslie freeze in her tracks, her eyes widened and all the color drained from her face. Severide followed her eyes and homed in on two guys seated a few bar stools away from him, two guys, late 30s, early 40s, one blonde and clean shaven, the other had dark hair and a 5 o' clock shadow to match and was heavier set than the blonde man. They were both dressed in work jeans and boots, the heavier man wore a motorcycle T-shirt and the blonde man had on a dirty muscle shirt and a baseball cap. Kelly looked back at Shay and saw her finally move, slowly stepping back, then turning and making a beeline back to the ladies' room.

"Where're you going, Shay?" Herrmann called.

She didn't answer and slipped back in the restroom before anybody else saw her.

Kelly got up, went to the restroom and stepped in.

"You can't be in here," Shay told him, "You are a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen, _again_."

"Is that them?" Kelly demanded to know.

Leslie nodded.

"You're sure?"

"You think I'd forget?" she asked defensively.

"Stay here," Kelly told her.

"Hold it," Shay grabbed him by the wrist and jerked him back, "What the hell are you going to do, Kelly?"

"Just stay here about 10 minutes, then come out."

"No, Kelly!" Shay tried to stop him but he was out the door, and she was left wondering what was going to happen now.

Kelly walked past the two men and casually mentioned, "Be right back, Herrmann," and headed outside. He scouted out the parking lot, and finally found it, a beat up green convertible with the top down.

* * *

"Hey Shay, what happened?" Herrmann asked when Leslie finally resurfaced.

Her eyes roamed around Molly's, the two men were gone, and so was Kelly, and nobody seemed to be in on what was happening.

"Uh, sorry, Herrmann, it's a female thing," she said as she returned to the bar.

"Oh, I get it, say no more," he replied. "You need another one?"

"Uh, sure," she said as she sat back down. She looked around again and asked Otis, "Where's Severide?"

Brian shrugged, "Haven't seen him."

"Figures, I'll just put tonight on his tab," Herrmann said dismissively.

Shay got up and headed towards the door and looked out, she didn't see Kelly's car anywhere, and she had a bad feeling about what was going on. Without a word, she went back to the bar and had another drink.

* * *

Kelly finally stumbled back to their apartment around 11:00, Shay was waiting for him, and she wasn't prepared for what she saw.

"Oh my God, Kelly, what did you do?"

Severide peeled off his jacket, revealing the full extent of his injuries, two sets of busted knuckles, a bloody nose, a split lip, a cut over his eye, and a bruise covering half of his arm.

"I think they got the message," he said.

"What did you _do_?" Shay demanded to know.

* * *

What he did was wait until the two men left Molly's, got in their car and left the parking lot, Kelly kept his lights off and followed after them to see where they went. It was a rundown apartment house, they had a room on the second floor. Kelly waited five minutes, then went upstairs and beat on the door until they answered, then he forced his way in.

"My name's Kelly Severide, I'm with the Chicago Fire Department, and I'm here in regards to Leslie Shay."

"What the hell are you talking about?" the blonde man asked.

"The woman that you two assaulted and threatened to rape two weeks ago," Kelly clarified.

The larger man's eyebrows raised as he started to say, "You mean that bull dy-"

"She also happens to be my sister," Kelly told them, "and if either of you, or any of your friends, ever go near her, or her friends again, I'm going to kill both of you. I already found out where you live, if you think I won't track you down, guess again."

* * *

"I'm guessing they weren't entirely convinced by your little speech," Shay said as she finished doctoring Kelly up.

"Well that's where things started to get physical," he replied, hissing as she bumped his bruised arm.

"What'd they say?" Leslie asked him.

"Oh, 'Ow, ow, my head, stop, please stop', something along those lines," Kelly answered.

Shay slapped his bruised arm, drawing a very loud yelp of pain out of the Squad lieutenant as she said to him, "Do you have any idea how stupid that was to do? You could've gotten yourself killed."

"I knew what I was doing," he responded.

"You planned on _this_?" she pointed out.

"Not exactly."

"That is the dumbest thing I have ever seen anybody do in my life and I've known you long enough that that's no small feat, Kelly," Shay told him, and after letting out an exasperated sigh, added, "Thank you."

"Huh?" that took him by surprise.

Shay hugged him, careful not to bump anymore sore spots, and told him, "Thank you, you stupid idiot...I love you, Kelly."

"That's the tequila talking, isn't it?" he asked.

She pulled back from him laughing. "I appreciate everything you did, Kelly, but you didn't have to, it's not your job."

"Sure it is," he responded simply, "We're family, Shay, it's our job to look after each other."

Leslie looked at him, for a moment there were no words, just the look in her eyes that said everything.

"Thanks, Kelly."

He hugged her, kissed her on the top of her head, then pulled back and told her, "Come on, get dressed."

"What? Where're we going?" Shay asked.

Kelly grabbed his jacket, put it back on and said, "Either on a junk food run, or out to a strip club, I'll let you decide."

Shay busted out laughing as she went to get her coat.


	21. Chapter 21

A Ton of Fun Part II

Brian Zvonecek loved being a firefighter. He did _not_ love the regular trips to Med to get his lungs cleared of smoke. This time the structure fire they'd worked had upgraded to a 5 alarm fire, taken 3 hours to evacuate everybody and get the flames put out, and effectively landed everybody from 51 and several members from the four neighboring houses as well in the hospital for the time being, most of them had taken in smoke, some of them had gotten burned, all in all none of them were too serious and it was expected everybody could go back to 51 before too much longer. He himself had just been cleared, and left the room so somebody else could be worked on.

Otis made his way down the corridor to see if anybody else had finished being examined or treated yet when something caught the corner of his eye and he stopped, and backed up, and looked in to one of the rooms.

Laying on a hospital bed was a heavier set woman with short dark wavy hair, wearing blue jeans, white sneakers and a red T-shirt that was very familiar. The woman was hooked up to a nebulizer and as she breathed in the steam of the medicine, she looked like she was just about asleep.

"Alayna?" Otis recognized the woman he'd briefly dated a couple months ago.

At the sound of her name, or his voice, he wasn't sure which, the woman opened her eyes and lifted her head. Her eyes lit up at the sight of him and through the mask she got out a muffled yet cheerful, "Hi Brian!" Even through the mask he could see her beaming from ear to ear.

Otis stepped into the room and went over to the bed. Alayna reached over and shut off the machine and removed the mask, "What're you doing here?"

"Oh...job related," he answered, "What're _you_ doing here?"

"Oh," she held the mask in her hand, "just fighting off this latest bronchial flu."

"Sorry to hear that," Otis said. "What've you been up to otherwise?"

"Hang on, I'll show you," she set the mask on the table beside the bed and stood up. Otis recognized the red shirt as the one she'd worn on their blind date together, and he couldn't help but notice it bagged around her a little more than the last time he saw her. He found himself grinning as well.

"Hey you look great."

"I've lost 15 more pounds since the last time you saw me," she said as she yanked on the fabric so it tented around her middle.

"That's fantastic."

"Yeah," she let go of the hems and let the material fall back into place. "But I expect to lose another 10 before I beat this flu...hardly been able to eat anything, can't stop coughing crap up, I've been in here three times in a week to use this damn machine breathing in Albuterol, I ought to just get one of these things to keep at home and save myself the trouble."

"Hey Otis, where're-" Cruz's voice came down the hall a few seconds before Joe popped his head in the door and did a double take. "There you are, what're you-Alayna!" he stepped into the room.

"Hi Joe!" she greeted Cruz.

"What're you doing here?" he asked.

"Oh, another respiratory infection," she grumbled.

"So _that's_ why you haven't been coming to class lately," Cruz said.

"Yeah, yeah," she nodded.

"You look great though."

As the two of them talked, Otis poked his head out the door and saw Severide at the end of the corridor chatting it up with one of the nurses, and a thought occurred to him. He stepped back into the room and asked the woman, "Hey Alayna, when you're feeling better, would you like to help us play a prank on one of the guys from 51?"

The brunette woman looked at him and asked in a completely deadpan voice, "Do I have to sleep with him?"

"No!"

She shrugged and replied, "What the hell, count me in anyway." That earned a gut busting laugh from the two firefighters.

"What've you got in mind, Otis?" Cruz asked.

"Severide."

Cruz looked like he was going to choke.

"Who's that?" Alayna asked.

"The _perfect_ guy to pull this prank on," Otis answered. "You still got my number, right?"

"Yeah, in here somewhere," she said as she took out her phone, "I keep all my dates' numbers on here. I may never see them again but it doesn't hurt to keep them in reach. You never know when you might need to call in a favor, incidentally if you ever want to meet any of the athletes I used to go with, just let me know. Aha, here it is."

"Great, when you feel up to it, give me a call and we'll go over the details," Otis said.

"Otis, _what_ is going through that head of yours?" Joe asked.

Brian looked to him and explained, "We are going to set Severide up on a blind date he's _never_ gonna forget."

Cruz shook his head, "Forget it, Otis, it'll never work. Severide doesn't need _your_ help to get a date, he'd never fall for it."

"I say he will," Brian responded, "I'll bet you I can set him up so he'll never see it coming."

"I'll take that bet," Cruz said.

Alayna reached over and nudged Cruz and told him, "Joe, if you bet against me _under_ triple digits, I'm going to be offended."

"I'm not betting against you," he responded, "it's against Otis and this crazy idea."

"What's so crazy about it?" Brian wanted to know. "Give me some credit, Cruz, I know how to improve from your 'I got just the woman for you, let me set up a date' sales pitch."

"So what _is_ the plan, Brian?" Alayna asked.

"Well..."

* * *

1 month later-

"Hey Severide," Brian said as Kelly entered Molly's front door, "Where've you been? There's been a woman in the last few nights asking about you."

"Who is it?" Kelly asked as he took a seat at the bar.

"I don't know, didn't get a name. But apparently she knows about you, she said she might be dropping in later to see if you were here."

The sound that came out of the Squad lieutenant's throat definitely indicated he was interested. It was a fairly busy night at Molly's and there were a handful of customers that weren't regulars, so it gave Severide plenty of chances to look around and see if any of them were the woman in question. Otis took his order, then looked over and saw Cruz sitting at one of the tables with a tense look on his face, and headed over to see what was going on.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I'm telling you, this ain't gonna work, Severide's going to know you set him up," Cruz said.

"The only way he could know that would be if you told him," Brian replied, and leered at him skeptically, " _Did_ you?"

"No way, man, but he ain't gonna fall for this, he's gonna know something's up," Joe said.

"If he does then you win the bet, so why're _you_ worried?" Otis wanted to know.

"You shouldn't have dragged Alayna into this, man," Cruz told him.

"I didn't drag her into anything, she wanted to do this," Otis said.

"It still wasn't right."

"It was her call to make, she's a big girl."

"That's a bad joke."

"Come on, Joe, you've known her longer than I have, you can _not_ talk this woman into doing anything she doesn't want to do."

"You're still taking advantage of the situation, you dated her, Otis."

"One time, it's hardly a relationship, besides, I don't think this is going to lose any respect between us."

"But what if-"

"Shh," Otis nudged him, "she's here."

"Oh boy," Cruz turned and looked to the bar so they could see the fireworks.

The door opened and Alayna walked in. Without even a glance at Brian and Joe's direction, she walked up to the bar, stood behind Kelly and said in a perky tone, "Excuse me, are you Kelly Severide?"

Kelly had a big grin on his face as he turned around on his bar stool, and the grin froze as his eyes bugged out, and quickly changed to another expression as he answered, "Ye-ah...uh, yeah, that's me."

Joe and Brian were both struggling not to laugh, Otis leaned over and murmured to Joe, "Now I see what she meant by 'utter look of terror'," recalling a conversation they'd had on his blind date with her. He watched as the two actually seemed to be talking, and also remembered Alayna's other comment about "it's easier when they don't know what I look like. By that time they realize how bad it'll look if they ditch me, and once they actually get to know me we actually wind up having a pretty good time."

When Brian had plotted with her how to set this up to trap Kelly, Alayna had never gone into any details of what she had planned for their date assuming it even went that far. But he knew that Severide was more inclined to go for a physically exerting evening than _he_ was, and while he was sure Kelly wouldn't come home at the end of the night _near_ as exhausted as he had been, he couldn't help wondering what the devious woman had planned this time, and wished he could be a fly on the wall for the escapades.

* * *

Otis and Cruz both got to 51 early the next morning before shift started, they wanted to make sure they were there when Severide finally walked in. And when his blue Mustang finally pulled up at the curb and he got out, both firefighters realized he had a slight but noticeable limp as he walked up to the apparatus floor, complete with an occasional 'Ow' from his lips. The two roommates were struggling with all their might not to bust out laughing, and they still put on a facade of total innocence in regards to what had happened at Molly's.

"Hey Severide, how was your date last night?" Brian finally asked.

Severide walked up to them with his bag slung over his shoulder and told both the men, "I'm not talking to either one of you."

That had the two of them looking at each other with a mutual expression of amusement and they followed Kelly to the locker room.

"What happened?" Otis asked, feigning innocence.

"That crazy woman you two stuck me with decided we should go to a roller rink," Kelly answered as he opened the door to his locker, "First of all how does anybody _that_ fat-" he slammed the door shut and turned around to face them, already looking embarrassed by what just came out of his mouth, "Sorry, out of line, I know..."

"So you didn't have a good time?" Cruz inquired.

"She's nice enough, but not really, no," Severide responded with a cynical expression on his face.

"How come?"

The locker room door swung open and Alayna and answered for him, "He got caught in the middle of a game of 'Crack the Whip' and wound up being thrown flat on his butt three separate times."

"What're you doing in here?" Kelly asked.

Alayna pointed back towards the door and said, "That nice woman, Connie out there pointed me in, she said I could find you here." She reached in her pocket and told him, "You forgot your phone last night when we left the rink."

"Oh...thanks," he replied as she handed it to him, wanting nothing more than to crawl under a rock right now, and hoping that she hadn't overheard what he'd said.

"Hey Kelly, I had a great time last night, if you're ever interested in going out again, let me know," she told him, then turned for the door, "I gotta go, bye guys."

Otis and Cruz gleefully waved goodbye and waited until she was gone to say anything. Otis couldn't resist ribbing Severide, "You must've left a real impression on her, Severide, she sure never asked me out for a second date."

"Hey," Cruz tapped him on the shoulder, "What'd she mean by 'that nice woman Connie'?"

The three firefighters all turned and looked towards the door in silent question, and all came to the same conclusion, "Uh oh."

"If those two ever team up against somebody, there's _no_ hope," Brian said.

"Yeah, but why would Connie let her come in here?" Cruz asked.

Otis leaned over to him and murmured, "You know why, she _knew_ nothing hinky would be going on."

That got a good laugh out of both of them.


	22. Chapter 22

Late Nights

Casey balled up his hand in front of his mouth as a particularly body-wracking yawn escaped him. His eyes burnt, he felt like he had bags under them the size of suitcases, all he wanted to do was go to bed. It was going on 2 o' clock in the morning and everybody had just gotten back from a five alarm fire that they'd worked the scene of for three hours before the flames were finally contained. They'd done a primary search of a ten story building, evacuated people from the rest of the block, 61 had delivered a dozen patients to Chicago Med while awaiting assistance from other Ambo companies to help transport three dozen more. The only thing that could make a raging fire worse than it already was, was a strong wind to spread the burning debris all over the neighborhood. That same strong wind also blew plenty of the water from Engine's hoses through the air and effectively soaked most of the crew from 51 long before their work was done.

"Brrrr!"

The noise drew Casey out of his fatigued thoughts and he looked and saw Kelly leaving his quarters, adjusting the sleeve on his shirt.

"I am _still_ freezing," he said.

Casey was nothing if not sympathetic, he'd also just gotten changed out of his sopping wet clothes and changed into a dry set, he felt _better_ but not necessarily _warmer_. "Why don't you get a shower?"

"I'm too tired," Kelly complained.

"You gonna start on your incident report?"

"Too tired for that too, I'll do it in the morning."

Casey nodded. "Me too...why don't you just go to bed?"

"I'm too tired for _that_ too," Severide answered.

Casey weakly nodded again. He was exhausted but he didn't actually feel like he was going to fall asleep anytime soon, calls like this always left his adrenaline at zenith once they returned to the firehouse.

"So...what do you want to do?" Casey asked.

Kelly tiredly squinted his eyes and said, "Let's just watch TV in the common room."

Casey nodded in agreement. On the way he stopped in the laundry room and grabbed a couple spare blankets. He joined Severide on the couch and they wrapped up in the heavy blankets as they watched whatever was on TV with the volume kept low so they didn't wake anybody else up.

After a few minutes, a small voice called out from the darkness, "Hey, you guys mind if I join you?" Around the glare from the TV, they were able to make out Sylvie's features as she stepped towards the light.

"Sure," Kelly said as he moved to the end of the couch.

Apparently Brett had also stopped by the laundry room as she carried another blanket with her and cocooned herself in it as she sat between the two lieutenants.

"Oh man, what a night," she said with a yawn.

"Tell us about it."

"When we get off shift I'm going home and sleeping until next shift," she said as she tucked her legs under the blanket.

"Sounds good to me," Casey said over another yawn.

"Stop doing that," Kelly grunted.

Casey looked over Sylvie's head. "What?"

"Stop yawning, you're making me even _more_ exhausted," Kelly told him.

Casey shrugged through his blanket, "Can't help it."

"I don't care, stop doing it."

Casey leaned over towards Brett and murmured, "You have no idea how glad I am we don't have to sleep together in the bunk room anymore."

That got a small tired laugh out of the blonde woman.

"So what's on?" she asked.

"Nothing," both men answered in unison.

"Perfect," she groggily responded as she dropped her head to her chest.

* * *

Casey felt trapped, stifled, constrained, he opened his eyes and saw he was sitting up on the couch in the common room wrapped in a blanket, _and_ he could tell that it was early in the morning since the room wasn't as dark as it had been before. Gradually the events of the previous night started to come back to him and he remembered what he was doing there. Him? He turned his neck, which was stiff from being slumped to the side all night, and saw Kelly and Brett asleep on the couch beside him, each of them also respectively wrapped up in their own blankets.

"Hey, Kelly."

Severide grunted something, then opened his eyes, and picked his head up, and groggily asked, "Wher're we?" He turned his head, and saw Casey on the other side of the couch, and Brett asleep between them, and everything started to come back to him too. "Oh."

The blonde woman was dead to the world and softly breathed into her blanket.

Casey looked over at Kelly and shrugged his shoulders and mouthed the words, "What do we do?"

Kelly shrugged in response and the two men watched the paramedic as she slept.

Casey wrestled with his blanket to get his hands loose and he reached over and tapped her on the shoulder, "Brett..."

"Brett," Kelly said slightly louder as he nudged her from his side.

"Brett," Casey poked her on the arm.

"Wake up, Sylvie," Kelly nudged a little harder on his side.

The blonde woman let out a small humming sigh, and without opening her eyes or lifting her head, tiredly murmured, "I'm sorry I burnt down the garage, Dad," and was immediately out of it again.

The two lieutenants looked at each other with wide eyes, then looked back at Sylvie, obliviously asleep between them, and they both moved as far to the ends of the couch and away from her as they could.


	23. Chapter 23

The Drawers Wars

"That does it! I've had it! I can't take this anymore!" Cruz's voice echoed off the walls as he walked through the corridor to the common room. "This is a crime against humanity!"

Otis didn't even look up from the newspaper he was reading as he nonchalantly asked, "Mouch leaving his Japanese underwear in the laundry room again?"

"Oh this is _way_ worse than that," Cruz told him as he stopped right in front of the table where Brian was seated. "I am going to be haunted by this one for the rest of my life."

"What?" Otis asked as he put the paper down.

Cruz had his hands behind his back, and he raised one arm and held up a shimmering red and black satin and lacy teddy.

Otis blinked. "What the hell is that?"

"I don't know!" Cruz replied. "It was just laying on top of one of the dryers."

"Wha-who..." Otis's brain was scrambling, trying to come up with a logical answer, but there was none. Not in a firehouse, not on shift. "Brett?"

"No way," Cruz shook his head.

That only left one option as far as Brian could see. "Dawson?"

"I don't think so, look at this thing," Cruz held it in front of him.

Otis groaned as he raised a hand to cover his eyes. "Joe, please, that's one mental image I _don't_ need."

"Look at it, Otis."

He did, and he realized what Cruz was getting at. The piece of lingerie actually concealed a good portion of his shirt. There was no way it could ever fit Dawson, or Brett...or maybe even both of them together.

"Who..." was all Otis's brain could manage to get out of his mouth.

"I don't know," Cruz said, "but I don't think we can stick _this_ one up on the bulletin board for somebody to claim."

Brian was still trying to form actual words, the best he could come up with was, "Who could that possibly belong to in this firehouse?"

It was a difficult question to answer, especially since neither of them could actually _ask_ anybody about it. They both went over towards Connie's desk, not to speak to her, but just to get a rough idea to size her up. She turned and shot them one of her death glares, and they both came to the same conclusions that one, there was no way in hell it was hers, and two, they needed to put as much distance between themselves and her as was possible.

"So if it's not Connie...there aren't any other women here who it could be," Otis said.

"Which leaves one _very_ unpleasant option," Cruz said.

Brian's face twisted into several different expressions of disgust. "One of the _guys_?"

"It's not impossible," Cruz told him.

"Yes it is, we know these guys! We work with them...we..."

"Are _no_ longer showering in the stall next to them," Cruz concluded for him. "Think about it, Otis...this could actually fit a man."

"Who? And _why_?" Otis asked.

"Who do you think's most likely to actually squeeze into this?" Cruz asked.

"Well...Casey and Severide are definitely out, Herrmann...forget it."

"So who does that leave?" Brian asked.

* * *

After the next call, everybody crashed in the common room to watch TV and kill time before lunch. Otis and Cruz took the opportunity to be as inconspicuous as they could as they idled through the room, glancing around at whoever they thought might have the body type to fit the garment they'd returned to the laundry room, hoping whoever the owner was, wouldn't notice that it had been missing.

For some reason, Mouch was the first one they looked at, who was oblivious to the prying eyes as he read a magazine article. Otis and Cruz looked at each other and collectively shook their heads, not only could they not see that ever happening, it was a safe bet he'd never fit it. They looked over at the table and both men stared at Capp, who was leaning halfway out of his chair as he focused on the crossword puzzle in the newspaper, and had one leg stretched as far out to the side as he could get it. The two firefighters looked at each other again with matching looks of disgust and horror, as they could somehow _just_ see it being a possibility. The why however was still a huge mystery, one they were content to leave unsolved.

"Everyone get ready to dish up in 10 minutes," Boden announced as he passed through the corridor.

Brian and Joe looked to each other again, and considered what a moment ago wouldn't have even crossed their minds. And they strongly shook their heads in a definite 'no', even if it was possible, that one was just too horrible to imagine.

A few minutes later everybody was in the kitchen getting their plates dished up and taking their spots at the table, as Connie entered the room, a shopping bag in hand.

"Chief, I'm stepping out, I'll be back at one," she said.

"Okay, Connie," Boden said, knowing better than to ask.

Others hadn't quite learned yet.

"Where're you going, Connie?" Kelly asked.

"My sister Bonnie's getting married on Saturday, I'm giving her _my_ present early," she reached into the bag and took out the red and black teddy for a brief glimpse, "make sure it's the right size before her wedding night."

"Sorry I asked," Kelly said.

"Have a good time, Connie," Boden said, his eyes never having raised from the table and completely oblivious to the item in question.

Cruz and Otis turned in their chairs and looked at each other, and let out an entirely different groan as they both sunk back in their chairs.

"What's with you two?" Herrmann asked.

"Oh...nothing," Otis said.

Under his breath Cruz commented to Brian, "If we _had_ stuck that on the bulletin board, she would've killed us."

"And that's if we were _lucky_ ," Brian replied.


	24. Chapter 24

Rough Night

A/N: This chapter is a sequel to my one-shot story "Type A".

Kelly Severide looked at his watch and noted how late it was. He hadn't been to bed yet and was still sitting at his desk in his quarters. He stood up, stretched his stiff legs and quietly opened his door and gazed out into the dark bunk room. He could hear familiar sounds of people snoring, light breathing, springs in the bunks creaking as the occupants rolled over in their sleep. It didn't sound to him like anybody was up. Still, he decided to test the waters. He left his door open and slipped out and crept off to the bathroom, and came back a moment later, and nothing had changed. Figuring this was his best shot, he went back into his quarters, then came out, and moved over to the quarters next door, quietly turned the knob and headed in, and shut the door behind him.

Casey's office was nearly pitch dark.

"Casey?" Kelly quietly whispered as he headed over to Matt's bunk.

Which was empty. Not only empty, the pillow and the top sheet were gone.

Kelly _knew_ that Casey hadn't left the room. That was precisely why he'd stayed up and listened, to make sure that he didn't miss him. This unexpected turn of events was almost enough to work him up in a panic, but he forced himself to remain calm, and he thought back to the discussion the two of them had had at Casey's apartment a few months back.

 _"I-have-anxiety-attacks, Kelly," the blonde man barely managed to string the sentence together without screaming. He sighed, and took another breath, and told him, "I get a weight on my chest, and I can't breathe..."_

 _"What're you talking about? We've known each other for over 15 years and you never-"_

 _"I never let anyone else know about it," Casey looked at Severide and explained, "I've learned how to hold myself together long enough until we're off shift..." in a defeated tone he added, "Then I come home and...decompress...fall apart..."_

 _"Casey...this doesn't make sense...what do you do on shift?"_

 _Matt paused for a moment before answering, "Wait until everyone else has turned in for the night...and I sleep under my bunk."_

Kelly dropped down onto the floor beside the bunk, even though the room was dark he could still make out the outline of Casey turned on his side facing away from him.

"Casey."

The lump under the bed didn't respond.

"Casey, you alright?"

A small muffled groan was his only response.

"You want some company?"

A similar groan, slightly louder, was the Truck lieutenant's answer.

"I brought my own pillow," Kelly told him.

Casey rolled over curiously and looked at the Squad lieutenant and saw him crouched on the floor with a pillow pressed against his knees. The unusual sight made the blonde man half roll back as a strangled laugh worked its way loose. Then he rolled on his back and scooted over to the other side. Kelly took the space opening up as an invitation and crawled under the bunk and flopped his pillow down next to Casey's. It was a tight fit but both of them just managed to fit in the space under the bed.

"Not too bad down here," he commented.

"You need to get out more, Severide," Casey dryly responded.

"How're you doing?" Kelly asked.

Casey just shook his head and anxiously drummed his fingers against his leg, as if waiting for something to end.

Since Kelly had inadvertently found out that Casey was prone to anxiety attacks, even though he knew he _couldn't_ because they didn't happen to him, he _tried_ to understand them and _tried_ to make some sense of them. Tried to find some common pattern to figure out what caused them, but so far had been unsuccessful. But he'd figured if anything could set one off, it would be a day like the shift they'd had that day. There were bad shifts and there were _bad_ shifts. In 16 hours they'd pulled five dead bodies out of a pileup on the freeway, and eight bodies out of two separate fires. Towards the end of the last call, Kelly knew what they were in for when he ran into Casey during the evacuation, and the Truck lieutenant was just standing in the middle of the room collapsing around them, a wide eyed look of panic on his face and through his mask Kelly could see how heavily he was breathing.

 _"Casey! Come on!_ "

He'd had to grab Casey and jerk him to get him moving. Once Casey was forced along a couple steps it was like his body suddenly remembered what to do and they ran out of there. A couple minutes later and the whole house collapsed in the fire. As they removed their turnout gear, Kelly looked over at Casey and could see the Truck lieutenant struggling with everything he had to keep it together, at least until they got back to 51. Once they had, he disappeared to his quarters and had hardly been seen the rest of the night.

"How do you _think_ I'm doing?" Casey asked.

Kelly didn't have to guess, he could feel Casey's knee knocking against his as the blonde man's whole body went into a fit of tremors.

"Hey, hey," Kelly reached over and pulled Casey against him and tried to steady him. "It's alright, take it easy, _breathe_ , Casey."

He _was_ breathing, but it was either coming out as heavy gasps or shallow wheezes. Kelly remembered the oxygen canister he'd given Casey, and he knew that Matt had taken to keeping it in one of his desk drawers so nobody found out, and he was about to make his way over to the desk to find it, when he felt Casey grab him by the shirt, _hard_ , suggesting to him that Casey didn't want him moving, so he didn't, he stayed on the floor under the bunk and tightly held his best friend in his arms as he tried to talk Matt through his panic attack.

* * *

"So this helps?" Kelly asked later in the night after Casey had finally calmed down and was able to return to his own side of the floor.

"I think so anyway," Casey replied as he folded his arms behind his head as the two of them stared up at the underside of his bed.

"Interesting."

"Look, Kelly, I appreciate you coming over to check on me, but you don't have to stay," Casey told him. "Unless those bells go off, I don't have the energy to get off this floor, and it's definitely _not_ the most comfortable place to sleep."

"Hey, if you're staying, so am I," Severide told him. He turned his head and looked at Matt and asked him, "You want to talk about it?"

"Nope."

Kelly kept his eyes focused on Casey, and after a brief silence he told the blonde man, "We can't save everyone on this job, Casey, you know that. No matter what we do, we just can't."

There was silence from the other man for a moment, then Matt responded, "13 dead in three separate calls in one day, Kelly...how does that happen?"

"I don't know, it just does. There wasn't anything we could do about it."

"I can't accept that," Casey said.

"You need to, otherwise you're never going to get past this, and you won't be able to keep your head on straight the _next_ time we get called out," Kelly told him.

Casey groaned, squeezed his eyes shut and brought both hands up to his face as the memories of earlier that day came flooding back. "I couldn't move...I don't know why, but I just couldn't move...if you hadn't come into the room when you did..."

"Hey, we got out of there, we're fine," Kelly pointed out.

"I know...but we couldn't save the family inside," Casey said.

Kelly sighed and shook his head. "Sometimes that's just how it turns out. It's not because we don't do everything we possibly can."

"I know," Casey replied, so quietly that Severide almost missed it entirely. "I know..."

* * *

Kelly woke up with a weight on his chest. He opened his eyes and saw Casey had half rolled over on him sometime during the night, he looked out from under the side of the bunk and saw the sunlight pouring in the window and realized it was morning. At that time, Matt was slowly coming around with a few grunts and groans as he stretched out and pulled away from Kelly.

"Morning."

"Yeah," Casey grunted as he rubbed his eyes.

"You doing alright?" Kelly asked.

Casey merely nodded and gave him the 'ok' sign.

"Thanks, Kelly."

"No problem...if you need me again, just let me know. This actually isn't too bad."

Casey got out a small laugh, then the next thing Kelly heard from him was a panicked gasp. He looked at Casey, and followed his gaze to the foot of the bed, and felt his own eyes widen in alarm at the sight of two large boots standing by the door. Both men slid out from opposite sides under the bunk and quickly got to their feet and saw Chief Boden standing in the room.

Casey was so caught off guard by the battalion chief's presence he could hardly speak. "...Chief..."

Kelly's brain was working a little faster, and he was very quick to assure Boden, "This isn't what it looks like, Chief."

Going by the look on Wallace's face, that did little to assure him as he responded, "Frankly, Severide, I don't want to _think_ about what this looks like." He looked at his two lieutenants, one by one, and addressed both of them, "I know this has been a rough shift for everybody, and I'd be _more_ worried if everything was status quo around here. Orlovsky's going to be on standby for anybody who needs to talk about what happened. I want to know all in all how would you say you're holding up?"

Casey and Severide glimpsed at each other briefly as they processed the question.

"Alright for the most part I think, Chief," Kelly answered.

Casey slowly nodded, "I agree."

"Well, if that changes," Boden told them, "I expect you to reach out to someone to work through it. Firefighters start shutting down, they aren't any good to themselves _or_ the people whose lives depend on them. Understood?"

"Yes."

"Yes sir."

"Good. Shift changes in an hour."

The two younger men waited until Boden had left the room, Casey turned to Kelly and said quietly, "Thank you."

"For what?" Kelly asked.

"For not telling him the truth."

"I didn't tell him anything," Kelly pointed out.

"If Boden knew what was really going on...and if he knew how often it happens...I'd never be able to work in CFD again," Casey told him.

"Well I don't know about _that_ ," Kelly replied, "Just because we learn _how_ to not panic on the job doesn't mean it doesn't happen."

"Nobody else-"

"You don't know that, you said yourself you learned how to hold it off until you were alone...maybe you're not the only one," Kelly said.

Casey blinked. "I never thought about that." He groaned and sighed as he walked over to the window and looked out at the empty bunk room. "Everybody has to know about this by now...what're we going to tell them?"

"Casey," Kelly came up behind him and also looked out the window, and said, "after what happened yesterday, I don't think anybody's going to ask _anything_."

Matt turned back towards him. "Thanks for stopping by last night."

"Thanks for having me," Severide responded.

"If it happens again..."

"You know where to find me."


	25. Chapter 25

From the Front

A/N: This chapter is set several years before the timeline of the show. Since the show's writers never explicitly filled in the details of who from the academy got to 51 first, my working theory here is that Casey was the last to transfer to 51 after making lieutenant.

Herrmann was fuming. "Can you believe it, Mouch? Can you believe it?"

"Believe what?"

"That pup they sent us to take over as Truck lieutenant."

Mouch did a slow double take. "You mean Casey?"

"Yeah I mean Casey, how the hell does a kid like that make it to lieutenant? We've been here 20 years and now we answer to him?" Herrmann sounded about ready to hit the roof.

Mouch tried to figure out what it was that was bending Christopher so far out of shape, but he just wasn't seeing it, and shrugged, "What's wrong with it?"

"I've been a fireman since this guy was in grade school, and he's my superior?" Herrmann was dumbfounded by the idea. "I've got shoes older than this kid, some underwear too."

"Thanks for sharing that," Mouch dryly remarked.

"It ain't bad enough we get that hot shot Severide as the Squad lieutenant, now we got another one, and to make matters worse, these two _know_ each other, they're pals. And then throw Darden into the mix, all three of these squirts went to the academy together. Is this a mass conspiracy or something?" Herrmann asked.

Mouch was about to start laughing. It wasn't rare to see Herrmann get so riled up about something, but this seemed as petty and non-issue as they came. "What's the problem with it, Herrmann?"

"We're surrounded by these guys that are telling us what to do and we've got more than two decades on them in this line of work, what is wrong with this picture?" Christopher wanted to know.

"Come on, nobody wants to be a lieutenant anyway," Mouch said, "the paperwork, the headaches, we're better off where we are, we have to put in as minimal paperwork on this job as possible."

"What about a lieutenant's salary?" Herrmann replied. "Who needs that kind of money more, these kids who don't even know what they want to do with their lives? Or guys like us who have busted our asses all our lives and have families to support?"

"I don't have to support anybody but myself," Mouch pointed out.

"Well I got a wife and three kids and another one on the way, and we're about two steps away from losing our house on a _good_ month...I could use that kind of extra cash," Herrmann said.

"What about all the extra work that goes with it?" Mouch asked, "Would you really want to have that kind of responsibility on top of the ones you already got?"

"Mouch, when you got three kids, responsibility is your middle name," Christopher replied. "If I could snag a lieutenant's position I would do it in a heartbeat, one of us older firemen deserves it more than those young guys out there."

"Well if you feel that way about it, why don't you take the lieutenant's exam?" Mouch asked.

"All the companies got their lieutenants already," Herrmann said.

"Yeah, _now_ , but...if anything happens to any of them, _you_ could take over as lieutenant, all the perks, all the respect, just slide right in to somebody else's shoes," Mouch explained. "Why don't you take the exam?"

"I already _did_ , Mouch..."

Randy did a double take, had he heard right? "What?"

Herrmann glanced to the side, not proud at this revelation, or the news it brought with it that he had kept this from his best friend. "I already took the lieutenant's exam last year, I failed. They make these things about impossible to pass, so I can't figure out how the hell Severide and Casey already did it."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Mouch asked.

"Incase I didn't pass, which I didn't, I didn't want everybody to know," Herrmann answered.

Mouch took this newfound information in, and continued probing, "You can take it again, can't you? You might pass it this time."

Herrmann shook his head, "I don't think so, besides, I'm not really lieutenant material. I think I'm doomed to stay right where I am on Truck and spend the rest of my days taking orders from somebody that could be my own kid."

Mouch chewed on that one for a minute and commented, "Casey's too good looking to be your kid."

"Shut up, Mouch," Herrmann told him.

"Sorry."

"Come on, let's get back to the common room," Herrmann said, "I gotta pretend I'm thrilled to have this guy leading our company, better try the look I give my mother-in-law when she cooks pot roast." A sardonic parody of a grin formed on Herrmann's face before he reworked it into some semblance of his normal expression. "Got this kid telling me what to do, what next, Lee Henry gonna start ordering me around my own house?"

* * *

2 shifts later-

A call had come in, a two-vehicle accident requiring Truck, Squad and Ambo. When they arrived they realized there had been more to it than the caller suggested. There were two cars collided into each other, a woman trapped in one car, two guys trapped in another, and a handful of bleeding people strewn all over the street in an apparent drive-by shooting. Additional ambos were called in, the two companies went to work stabilizing the people in the cars to move them, cut the doors off, one by one got everybody loaded onto backboards, got them into the ambulances, it took nearly an hour before the last victim was being transported to the hospital. The cops were leaving the scene and everybody was just gathering their gear up to put back on the rigs and head back to 51 when a car came speeding up the street and the passenger opened fire on the first responders. Everybody hit the ground and ducked the shots, they heard the tires squealing as the car tore through the intersection and disappeared.

"What the hell was that?" Herrmann was yelling as he got to his feet, he looked around and asked, "Is everybody alright?"

"Yeah I think so," Vargas answered as everybody else stood back up.

"Oh my God!"

Everybody turned towards Severide, and realized he was looking at Casey, who had been hit and had blood running down the front of his shirt, and seemed to be in a daze and hadn't acknowledged what had happened to him yet.

"Oh my God," Herrmann repeated.

It was one thing to work with gunshot victims and get them to the hospital, it had never happened to one of their own. They'd been shot _at_ several times over the years, but nobody ever took a bullet.

Casey's eyes were wide as he suddenly realized what happened, and he was just about to lose his footing, and started screaming. Severide and Darden raced over to him and kept him from collapsing on the ground.

Herrmann couldn't even think. He turned to the others and started barking at them, "We'll get him to the hospital ourselves, Tony, get the Squad rig to East Mercy as fast as you can."

Tony was just as shaken up as everybody else but he quickly recovered and told Herrmann, "Lakeshore's closer."

Herrmann shook his head, "No, at this time of day we'd never get through the traffic, East Mercy, _now_!"

Tony wasn't going to argue with him. "Got it!"

Christopher turned to Andy and told him, "Darden, get the first aid kit and get out everything we'll need."

"Right!" Reluctantly, he left the two lieutenants' sides and rushed over to the truck.

Herrmann closed the gap between himself and Casey and Severide and clamped both hands on the bullet wound in Casey's lower abdomen.

"Herrmann!" Casey was losing the battle with himself to not panic as he felt his blood running out of him.

"It's alright, Casey, we're gonna get to the hospital and you'll be fine," Herrmann turned to the others and yelled at them, "Mouch! Vargas! Get over here, we gotta move him!"

Casey tried to take a step and just fell on the pavement. Everybody gathered round, Vargas and Severide got his turnout coat off, and everybody got ready to move him to the rig.

"On my count," Herrmann said as everybody grabbed Casey and got ready to lift him, " _now_!"

Keeping pressure on the wound, Herrmann stepped in time with the others as they bodily lifted Casey up and moved as one to get him to Squad 3 with as little jostling around as possible. They got in the back of the rig and laid Casey flat on the floor, and before the door was even closed, they heard the beep of the rig backing up, then all were jerked forward as Tony shifted gears and got the hell out of there.

"Keep him steady, don't let him move," Herrmann told the others as they hovered around Casey and held him down despite his frenzied movements of protest. He cut Casey's shirt open to get a better look at the wound.

"I know this doesn't make you feel any better, Casey, but it looks like a small caliber," he told the young lieutenant. "That should be easier for the doctors to fix." He grabbed a handful of gauze pads and pressed them tight against the wound.

Casey's whole body jerked as he let out a pained yell. "God, Herrmann! It hurts!"

"I know, I know," Herrmann calmly replied, "I know, Casey, but we'll be at East Mercy in a few minutes. Darden, radio the hospital and let them know we're coming in, and radio 61 and see if they're anywhere nearby."

"Okay."

"And call the chief, tell him what's going on and tell him to meet us at the hospital."

Casey struggled against everybody's hold on him and tried to get up. Everybody kept him pinned down and tried to talk some sense into him, but he fought with them, begging Herrmann, "Not like this, not on the floor..."

"Okay, okay," Herrmann said, "Severide, let go of Casey and get behind him and we're gonna ease him up a little. Casey, keep your legs still, don't move them, we're gonna sit you up, that okay?"

Herrmann's stomach churned as he felt the gauze against his hands becoming wet, Casey was bleeding out faster than he'd thought, but he wasn't about to tell the hysterical lieutenant that.

Kelly maneuvered himself behind Casey on his knees and helped lift Casey's upper body to lean back against him. Once Casey was sitting up, he tried to look down at the wound.

"No, no," Herrmann told him, "don't do that, don't look down, look at _me_ , Matt, focus on _me_ , we're gonna be at the hospital soon."

Casey was breathing rapidly despite Herrmann's attempts to coax him down, in between ragged gasps he got out, "Christie...call Christie..."

"You can call her yourself after the docs get done with you," Herrmann told him. "You're very lucky, Casey, you know as well as I do that stomach wounds take longer to bleed out, we're gonna get to the hospital with plenty of time to spare, don't worry, you're gonna be good as new in no time."

Casey groaned in pain and said through his gritted teeth, "Herrmann, anybody ever tell you you give the _worst_ pep talks?"

"See? He's joking, he's gonna be fine," Christopher said, trying to get Casey to relax.

Tears built up in Casey's eyes and started running down the sides of his face, "Herrmann, I'm scared."

"I know, that's perfectly natural," Herrmann said as he kept his hands pressed as tight as possible against Casey's stomach, "but everything's gonna be just fine. Trust me."

"We're here!" Tony announced, "hang on!"

Everybody was nearly thrown again as Tony got the rig around the rest of the hospital traffic and got it as close to the front without going over the curb. Half a dozen people were rushing over to the truck with a gurney. The doors opened and the doctor told them, "We're ready to move him."

"Okay, everybody get ready on my count," Herrmann told the others as they grabbed Casey and got ready to lift him, "On three...three!"

In one sudden move the four firemen raised Casey off the truck floor and transported him out the door and onto the gurney, Herrmann moved in time with them to keep pressure on the wound.

"You can let go now," the doctor told him.

Instead Herrmann stood on the gurney just over the wheels and responded, "If it's all the same to you, I'll wait till we get him inside."

"Let's go," the doctor told the rest of the crew as they wheeled him to the front doors.

They entered East Mercy and the doctors very quickly took Casey away, Herrmann finally let go and watched as they wheeled Matt straight to the OR. It was out of their hands now, and the excitement had died down but everybody's adrenaline was through the roof. Herrmann stood in the middle of the room, only faintly aware of Matt's blood on his hands.

There wasn't anything to do now but wait, and that was the worst part, second only to knowing. Christopher ducked into the men's room to wash his hands, wanting to puke at the sight of his own lieutenant's blood covering him. He dried his hands, returned to the waiting room and noticed they were two firemen short.

"Hey, where's Darden and Severide?"

The others turned and just realized Kelly and Andy were gone, and they all looked around the waiting room.

"Alright, nobody move incase the doc comes out," Herrmann told them, "I'll go look for them."

He walked through the corridors checking every door he passed, and finally found the two young firemen huddled in a corner, holding onto each other and starting to break down like a couple of scared kids, that Herrmann realized, they actually were.

"Alright you guys," he said as he walked up to the two of them, who let go of one another when they heard him coming, "I know you're worried about Casey, we all are, but going to pieces like this isn't going to do anybody any good. Casey's in the hands of some of the best doctors in Chicago right now and we gotta trust that they know what they're doing. Now we know it's gonna be a while before anybody comes out and tells us anything, so all we can do is wait. Come on, let's get back to the others."

* * *

Boden entered the waiting room and looked around at his men and grimly inquired, "How's Casey?"

"Docs ain't been out yet, we don't know nothing, Chief," Herrmann answered.

"What happened on that call?"

"We just got done on the scene when some moron drives by and starts shooting at us, everybody ducked but Casey got hit," Herrmann answered, "as soon as we realized that we got him loaded up and brought him here."

"In the Squad rig?"

"Ambo was already en-route with the victims from the car crash and there wasn't time to call in another one," Herrmann explained. "We assessed the situation and moved as fast as we could...we kept Casey steady as possible, kept him alert until we got here, probably wasn't everything by the book but given what we had to work with, we did the best we could."

Boden nodded, "I'm sure you did, Herrmann. Was anyone else injured in the shooting?"

There was a low chorus of 'no's from the men sitting in the chairs.

Their chief nodded and responded, "I'm glad to hear it."

He joined them in the wait.

An hour later the surgeon came out and announced that Matt was out of surgery and being moved to ICU, the bullet had been removed, had missed most vital areas, the damage that _had_ been caused was repaired, and in time Casey was expected to make a full recovery. Everybody heaved a sigh of relief and wanted to know when they would be able to see him. It was advised that they wait until tomorrow to visit, and then only in small numbers to begin with. Reluctantly, everybody got up and got ready to leave the hospital, all planning to be back as soon as possible the next day.

* * *

When they went to see Casey the next day, the young lieutenant was out cold from the drugs the doctors had him on for the pain. As far as anybody could tell, he was completely oblivious to the people standing around him, but it did nothing to stop everybody from trying to get his attention. Soon Casey was moved from ICU to a regular room for recovery, but the drugs still took their toll and he was asleep more often than not when everybody came to visit. Kelly and Darden especially overstayed their welcome long past visiting hours, Kelly half laying on the bed beside Casey, Darden in a chair beside the bed, gripping Casey's hand in his. Eventually a nurse would have to shoo them out and tell them to come back in the morning.

One day Herrmann and Mouch stood outside the room and watched the antics taking place on the other side of the glass doors. Casey had started getting up and walking around to prevent blood clots and to start fully recovering from his surgery, but he still spent most of the days in bed and was slow to get up, so Severide had taken that ample opportunity to swipe the cup of soup off his tray and was trying to stick the spoon in Casey's mouth, much to the Truck lieutenant's immense displeasure, all the while Andy just sat on the chair next to the bed and laughed.

"Well looks like things are starting to get back to normal," Herrmann commented, "just a matter of time before Casey's back at 51 ordering us around again." He turned and saw Mouch standing there with a smug cat-that-swallowed-the-canary expression on his face. Hermann shrugged his shoulders, "What?"

"Who says you're not lieutenant material?" Mouch asked.

"What're you talking about?"

Mouch pointed to the room and said, "Casey's alive, because of _your_ quick thinking."

Herrmann's face scrunched up as if he had no idea what Randy was talking about and tried to brush it off, but Mouch wouldn't let him.

"Transport a gunshot victim in the Squad rig, _knowing_ this was the quickest route here during midday traffic instead of the _closest_ hospital to the scene, keeping Severide and Darden's heads on while Casey was in surgery, I don't think there's anybody else at 51 who would've been capable of that, and as _quick_ as you did. That sounds like a perfect example of leaders leading from the front. You might consider re-taking that lieutenant's exam. You might be surprised."

Herrmann looked at him for a minute and thought about it.

"Maybe," he conceded, then thought about it again, and repeated with a small nod, "Maybe."


	26. Chapter 26

Locked In

Kelly Severide tilted his head to the side and listened. Outside the rain was pouring down, beating on the walls of 51, and had been all night. Every so often there was an explosion of thunder. The power had been faltering off and on for hours, and everybody had placed their bets on how long it would be before the power was totally out and they were in the dark, and how long the power would be off.

But, around all the noise caused by the weather, Kelly would've sworn he could hear something else. He held his breath, and listened, and strained to hear past the rain and the occasional rumble of thunder.

"Hey," he suddenly spoke up, "Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Tony asked.

He tried to think, finally he shook his head, "I don't know...something."

"Yeah, five inches of rain busting down outside," Mouch answered.

"I am definitely _not_ looking forward to mowing tomorrow," Herrmann said, "once the ground soaks up all that water, the lawn's gonna be ten inches tall."

"No," Kelly insisted, "something else..."

Everybody thought he was nuts, but they all found themselves trying to hear what he was hearing.

"I don't hear anything," Capp said.

"Me either," Otis added.

"Hey," Kelly thought of something and looked around, "Where's Casey?"

Everybody found themselves looking around once again.

"When was the last time anybody saw him?" Kelly asked. He knew he'd seen Matt earlier, but he didn't remember when that was, and it just now dawned on him he hadn't seen the Truck lieutenant for a while.

Nobody could answer that right offhand either.

"Maybe he's in his quarters," Otis suggested.

Kelly decided to check. He made his way to the bunk room and went over to the lieutenants' quarters and looked in. The room was dark. On the offhand Casey was taking a nap, he opened the door and turned on the light. Nothing. It didn't look like Casey had been there all day. Feeling confused and truth be told a little concerned, he backed out of the room, pulled the door shut behind him and headed back to the common room.

"He's not there," Kelly told them.

"You don't think he actually went outside, do you?" Herrmann asked.

"In _this_ weather?" Kelly shook his head. He took out his phone and dialed Casey's number, it went straight to voicemail.

"A fireman doesn't just disappear from a firehouse," Herrmann said, "maybe ask the chief if he's seen Casey."

The windows lit up with a white flash of lightning and then the power surged in the room, but the electricity stayed on.

"At this rate we ain't gonna be able to see each other soon enough," Tony commented.

Severide wasn't laughing, and he couldn't shake the feeling that was nagging at him.

"Something's wrong," he said, "come on, let's see what's going on."

If the others were starting to come to the same conclusion that Severide was, that something actually _was_ wrong, they didn't let on, but everybody got up from what they were doing and they left the room to search through the firehouse.

"Hey Chief," Kelly said as Boden turned the corner and came into their line of vision, "Have you seen Casey?"

"No, why?"

"Nobody's seen him for about half an hour and he's not answering his phone," Kelly answered.

Boden didn't say anything, but the look on his face spelled it out loud and clear for the others. Something was definitely wrong.

* * *

"Casey?"

"Casey!"

The sounds of the lieutenant's name being called echoed off the walls and up and down the corridors as everybody searched a different part of the firehouse. The power had surged again but this time it had actually gone out, everybody used their flashlights to see where they were going, but the sudden plunge into darkness just made it that much more unnerving for the firefighters as they continued their search. Every so often somebody heard footsteps nearby but when they turned the corner there was nobody there. The whole situation just went from weird to even weirder.

Cruz cupped his hands beside his mouth and bellowed out, "Yo Casey are you here!?" There was no response.

"We're running out of places to look," Tony pointed out.

"He's got to be here somewhere," Kelly said as they headed to the apparatus floor. "Casey!"

The floor under them rumbled from a deafening boom of thunder exploded overhead. As the noise died down, Kelly listened, and he would've sworn he heard something else.

"You hear that?" he asked.

"What?" Tony asked.

"Come on," Kelly headed over to the rigs.

As they made their way to the trucks they heard a faint metallic sound, and as they got closer, the noise grew louder, but it was still muffled. Shining their lights on the rigs, they didn't see anything, but Kelly followed the sound over to 81 and heard the distinctive sound of somebody banging on metal. He flashed his light over the side of the truck and realized it was coming from the doors to the compartment where the air bottles were kept.

"Casey?"

The pounding noises continued and he heard a muffled, " _Get me out of here_ " coming from inside the compartment. Kelly grabbed the doors but couldn't get them to budge.

"Tony! Over here!" Kelly waved him over.

"What is it?"

"It's Casey."

Tony heard what Kelly heard and asked the Squad lieutenant, "How the hell'd he get in there?"

The two firemen worked the doors and finally got the bolt to release and pulled them open. As they did, a loud, disgruntled breath could be heard from inside. Kelly shone his light in the compartment and they saw Casey sprawled out on the bottom shelf.

"How'd you get in there?" Kelly asked.

Casey fell out of the compartment and said in a very unamused tone as he shakily got to his feet, "Some-body knocked-me-out."

In the beam of illumination from his flashlight, Kelly could just barely make out the bloody cut over Casey's eye before he turned his head.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Casey insisted.

"Did you see who it was?" Tony asked.

"Not a good look," Casey huffed in exasperation, "He's got to still be in here somewhere."

"We've been searching the whole place for you," Kelly pointed out, "There can't be a lot of places for him to hide."

Echos of people screaming from another part of the station house reverberated down the corridors to the apparatus floor.

"Sounds like they found him," Tony noted.

"Come on!" Casey took off running.

It didn't even seem to dawn on Casey that he was running in pitch darkness, somehow he made his way through the corridors without bumping into the walls or anything else. The voices grew louder and he saw lights up ahead, and he was just able to make out the image of somebody running towards him.

Acting on pure instincts, Casey grabbed the person and threw him to the ground, then to make sure he stayed down, or at least better the odds of it, threw himself on top of the intruder. Everybody else came running and with their lights they were able to finally get a good look at 51's mysterious intruder. It was a man in his 30s with short dark hair, grungy facial hair, a bad complexion and a tattoo on the back of his hand.

"Holy crap," Herrmann said, "this guy was on the news this morning, he busted out of jail last night."

Casey let out a strained exhale as he collapsed against the man, using his full body weight to keep him pinned to the floor.

* * *

"Never a dull moment in this house, is there?" Antonio asked when he and Jay showed up to take the guy back to jail. By the time they showed up, the power was back on and running throughout 51.

"Especially not when you _mention_ it," Otis responded.

"How the hell did he get out?" Kelly asked.

"With a couple other inmates, they were all arrested for violent charges, all of them looking at 20 year sentences easily...the other two were recaptured sometime during the night...this guy's the only one we were still looking for," Antonio explained. "Is everybody okay?"

"Yeah, fine," Casey answered, though as he spoke, his eye directly under the cut squeezed itself shut and stayed that way for a couple seconds.

Kelly walked over to him, looked at him and asked, "Are you sure? You don't look good."

"I don't?"

"Well you've looked better," Kelly responded.

"Very funny, I'm fine, Severide, okay?"

As Casey spoke, his head lolled to the side and his feet moved under him as he lost and quickly regained his balance. Kelly grabbed him by the shoulders to steady him and told the blonde lieutenant, "That does it, I'm taking you to Med."

"I don't need to go," Casey insisted.

"The doctors will be the judge of that," Severide replied as he walked Casey towards the door, "Come on, we'll take my car."

* * *

"What's the report?" Boden asked when the two lieutenants returned an hour later.

"Minor concussion," Casey said, "Nothing to worry about."

"They _said_ ," Kelly corrected him, "for him to take it easy for the next couple days and let them know if he starts having any problems."

"I'm fine," Casey insisted.

"That might be," Boden told him, "but I'm sending you home early, Herrmann can fill in as acting lieutenant for the rest of shift."

"Chief-"

"No argument, Casey," Wallace told him.

Casey grumbled under his breath and responded, "Copy that, Chief." He turned and headed to the locker room to change.

"Casey."

"Yes, Chief?" Matt turned back.

"I'm glad you're okay."

Casey looked at him in awe for a couple seconds before nodding and replying, "Thanks, Chief."

Kelly followed Casey down the hall, and when Casey saw they were alone he turned to the Squad lieutenant and told him, "Thanks, Kelly."

"For what?"

"For getting me out of there...when I came to it took me a couple minutes to figure out where I was...good thing I'm not claustrophobic or that would've been _really_ ugly."

Kelly chuckled in response and told him, "I'll stop by tomorrow to see how you're doing."

"That's not necessary."

"I know, but I'm going to anyway," Kelly said.

Casey looked at him and nodded, "Thanks."


	27. Chapter 27

The Morning After

Kelly Severide had lost count of how many showers he'd taken since shift started the day before. It didn't seem to matter, he could still smell the smoke from all yesterday and all last night. He was tempted to take another shower since he was home, but he was too tired, he dropped his bag by the door, zombie-walked to his bedroom, crawled under the top sheet and closed his eyes.

The morning after the 4th of July was a lot like the morning after Halloween or New Year's Eve. In any case, you woke up and went outside and the whole city looked like it had a hangover, remnants of the night before were strewn all over the street, the silence of the morning sharply contrasting with the noise of all the night before. They'd been out all night responding to one yard fire to another to a house fire to burn victims, and all he wanted to do was see the inside of his eyelids for a few hours before facing what was left of the day.

The next thing Kelly knew, he opened his eyes and realized he had a guest.

"Get out of my bed," he weakly told Matt Casey, who had suddenly crawled in on the other side.

"Make me," Casey replied just as weakly, clutching the sheet against him like he was holding his ground. The room was still brightly lit but the sun had changed positions, meaning Kelly had to have been asleep for at least a couple hours, but it still wasn't enough.

Kelly turned on his side and sighed, "You have a nightmare?"

Casey absently inched over closer to Kelly, until he was actually able to rest his head on the other man's shoulder.

"I like the 4th of July," Matt told him.

"So do I," Kelly replied.

"I like the fireworks."

"No argument there."

"I'd like them even more if they were actually legal," Casey added.

"Uh huh," Kelly nodded.

"But for the life of me," Casey told him, "I can't figure out why no matter what happens from one year to the next, people can't figure out that alcohol and explosives _do not mix_."

"That'd just make our job too simple," Kelly said sarcastically.

He quickly grew quiet when he felt Casey's fingernails digging into the skin between his ribs. He wouldn't look at Casey, he just turned his eyes up towards the ceiling. "Still thinking about that kid last night?"

Casey was quiet for a minute before he said only, "Kids are the worst."

Kelly inhaled, then sighed, "No argument."

"I don't envy anybody working in the ER at this time of the year," Casey said.

Kelly shook his head, "Nope."

There was silence between them for a moment, Casey didn't loosen his grip any. Finally he asked Kelly, "Can I stay?"

Kelly sighed and nodded, "Okay, sure."

"Thanks."

Casey inched his way back over to the other side of the bed. Kelly grabbed the top sheet and straightened it out over the both of them.

"Goodnight."

He felt Casey hit him on the shoulder, he opened his eyes and saw Casey gesturing with his other hand, "Good _night_?"

"You know what I mean," Kelly said.

Matt nodded. "Goodnight, Kelly."


End file.
